Fran Lebowitz Quotes About Writing
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If there had been a job of being a reader, I would have taken that, because I love to read and I don't love to write. That would be blissful.
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I hate writing. I will do anything to avoid it. The only way I could write less was if I was dead.
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I have the exact opposite problem of every writer I've ever met: Every writer I've ever met writes things that are too long, and they have to edit them down.
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My dream writing room would be the Imperial Library in Vienna.
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Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.
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I'm such a slow writer I have no need for anything as fast as a word processor. I don't need anything so snappy. I write so slowly that I could write in my own blood without hurting myself.
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Writing is so hard. Why would you be a writer if you weren't really good at it? If you could be anything else, why would you be a writer?
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In conversation you can use timing, a look, an inflection. But on the page all you have is commas, dashes, the amount of syllables in a word. When I write, I read everything out loud to get the right rhythm.
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I write a sentence a thousand times, changing it all the time to look at it in different ways.
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The best fame is a writer's fame. It's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough to get you interrupted when you eat.
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Screenwriting is not an artform, it is a punishment from God.
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Writers have problems writing sex scenes, because writing one really well is pornography.
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If, while watching the sun set on a used-car lot in Los Angeles, you are struck by the parallels between this image and the inevitable fate of humanity, do not, under any circumstances, write it down.
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I have a hard time writing. Most writers have a hard time writing. I have a harder time than most because I'm lazier than most. I don't want to brag, but I'm the laziest person I have ever known.
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For the movie review columns, I always knew exactly what I was going to write about - the movies.
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If you feel the urge to write, just lie down and read a book: it will pass.
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Should novels generally be 600 pages? No, they should not. Half of writing, maybe 3/4 of writing, is editing. This seems to be a thing that has not gotten through to them. It's my impression that you could get rid of half of most of these books. These people are not good enough to be this long, but they're apparently also not good enough to be shorter.
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Whenever I am doing anything else, which is most of the time, even if it is not something like robbing a bank, I feel felonious. Writing is what I'm supposed to be doing.
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When I started publishing, I got offers to write for big magazines. But I would always say, "Well, it's not that I don't want to write for these big magazines, but you can't edit it."
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Not writing is probably the most exhausting profession I've ever encountered. It takes it out of you. It's very psychically wearing not to write - I mean if you're supposed to be writing.
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There is nothing more mine than my writing, nothing I'm more proprietary about.
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Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.
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Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try.
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When Toni Morrison said 'write the book you want to read,' she didn't mean everybody.
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Not writing is probably the most exhausting profession I've ever encountered.
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When I'm supposed to be writing I clean my apartment, take my clothes to the laundry, get organized, make lists, do the dishes. I would never do a dish unless I had to write.
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Instead of writing it wrong six times and then writing it right, I think it wrong six times and then write it right the seventh time.
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I have a real aversion to machines. I write with a pen. Then I read it to someone who writes it onto the computer. What are those computer letters made of anyway? Light? Too insubstantial. Paper, you can feel it. A pen. There's a connection. A pen goes exactly at your speed, whereas that machine jumps. And then, that machine is waiting for you, just humming "uh-huh, yes?
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Writing pornography is deadly, nothing duller. I mean a toll-taker has a more exciting life than a pornographer.
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I never would start writing before midnight and I would finish at, like, seven in the morning.
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