WIST Quotations

Adams, Douglas -- Interview (2001-04-05) by Brendan Buhler, “Man of the Galaxy,” Daily Nexus, University of California, Santa Barbara

Dave — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 19:36:10 +0000

People assume you sit in a room, looking pensive and writing great thoughts. But you mostly sit in a room looking panic-stricken and hoping they haven’t put a guard on the door yet.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Interview (2001-04-05) by Brendan Buhler, “Man of the Galaxy,” Daily Nexus, University of California, Santa Barbara
(Source)

Collected in The Salmon of Doubt, Part 3 "And Everything" (2002) [ed. Peter Guzzardi].

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 5 (1963)

Dave — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 15:01:07 +0000

An old racetrack joke reminds you that your program contains all the winners’ names. I stare at my typewriter keys with the same thought.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 5 (1963)
(Source)

Hemingway, Ernest -- Green Hills of Africa, ch. 1 (1935)

Dave — Fri, 06 May 2022 20:00:23 +0000

You see we make our writers into something very strange. […] We destroy them in many ways. First, economically. They make money. It is only by hazard that a writer makes money although good books always make money eventually. Then our writers when they have made some money increase their style of living and are caught. They have to write to keep up their establishment, their wives, and so on, and they write slop. It is slop not on purpose but because it is hurried. Because they are ambitious. Then, once they have betrayed themselves, they justify it and you get more slop. Or else they read the critics. If they believe the critics when they say they are great then they must believe them when they say they are rotten and they lose confidence. At present we have two good writers who cannot write because they have lost confidence through reading the critics. If they wrote, sometimes it would be good and sometimes not so good and sometimes it would be quite bad, but the good would get out. But they have read the critics, and they must write masterpieces. The masterpieces the critics said they wrote. They weren’t masterpieces, of course. They were just quite good books. So now they cannot write at all. The critics have made them impotent.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
Green Hills of Africa, ch. 1 (1935)
(Source)

Speaking of American writers.

Thomas, Caitlin -- Not Quite Posthumous Letter to My Daughter (1963)

Dave — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 17:28:13 +0000

The wretched Artist himself is alternatively the lowest worm that ever crawled when no fire is in him: or the loftiest God that ever sang when the fire is going.

Caitlin Thomas (1913-1994) British author, wife of Dylan Thomas [née Macnamara]
Not Quite Posthumous Letter to My Daughter (1963)
(Source)

Gaiman, Neil -- “This Much I Know,” The Guardian (2017-08-05)

Dave — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 17:47:34 +0000

I’m convinced if I keep going one day I will write something decent. On very bad days I will observe that I must have written good things in the past, which means that I’ve lost it. But normally I just assume that I don’t have it. The gulf between the thing I set out to make in my head and the sad, lumpy thing that emerges into reality is huge and distant and I just wish that I could get them closer.

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
“This Much I Know,” The Guardian (2017-08-05)
(Source)

Waters, Sarah -- In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)

Dave — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 13:30:30 +0000

Don’t panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends’ embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce … Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there’s prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.

Sarah Waters (b. 1966) Welsh novelist
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)

Mantel, Hilary -- In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)

Dave — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 13:43:10 +0000

If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.

Hilary Mantel (b. 1952) English writer
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)

Stern, G. B. -- Paris France, Part I (1940)

Dave — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:04:34 +0000

One of the pleasant things those of us who write or paint do is to have the daily miracle. It does come.

G. B. Stern (1890-1973) British writer [Gladys Bronwyn Stern]
Paris France, Part I (1940)

Adams, Douglas -- Attributed in Richard Dawkins, “A Lament for Douglas Adams,” The Guardian (2001-05-13)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Attributed in Richard Dawkins, “A Lament for Douglas Adams,” The Guardian (2001-05-13)
(Source)

Memorial to his friend, Adams; later collected in The Salmon of Doubt, Part 4 "Epilogue" (2002) [ed. Peter Guzzardi]. Many variants exist, e.g., "What I love the most about deadlines is the whooshing sound they make as they go by."