#writ

Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#writing #introspection

I need solitude for my writing; not 'like a hermit' - that wouldn't be enough - but like a dead man. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#writing #solitude

I do not fear that "future generations will not read novels," etc. It is probably a complete misunderstanding to conceive of serious art in categories of production, market, readers, supply and demand(...)art is not the fabrication of stories for readers but a spiritual cohabitation, something so tense and so separate from science, even contradictory to it, that there can be no competition between them. If someone fine, dignified, prolific, brilliant (this is how one ought to speak of artists this is the language art demands) is born in the future, if someone unique and unrepeatable is born, a Bach, a Rembrandt, then he will win people over, charm and seduce them... ↗

— Witold Gombrowicz

#artists #reader #science #talent #writing

A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#writers #writers-on-writing

I place my fingers upon these keys typing 2,000 dreams per minute and naked of spirit dance forth my cosmic vortex upon this crucifix called language. ↗

— Aberjhani

#books #creativity #determination #dreams #endurance

So we went to bed, assaulted by sleep that fumed at us from medicine glasses, or was wielded from small sweet-coated tablets -- dainty bricks of dream wrapped in the silk stockings of oblivion. ↗

— Janet Frame

#dreams

Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions." (Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886) ↗

— Anton Chekhov

#creative-process #state-of-mind #writing #writing-process

You can't eat [literature], that's the problem," he said. "I've tried, it's very dry, and not at all nutritious. ↗

— Kenneth Oppel

#literature #nutrition #this-dark-endeavor #writing #literature-quotes

I think that I had better go, Holmes." "Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#writing #literature-quotes

Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about. ↗

— Octavia Butler

#fantasy #first #follow #learn #open