Ayn Rand Quotes About Writing

• To be the kind of writer you want to be, you must first be the kind of thinker you want to be.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Creative, Firsts

  Ayn Rand (2000). “The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers”, p.102, Penguin

• If a drought strikes them, animals perish--man builds irrigation canals; if a flood strikes them, animals perish--man builds dams; if a carnivorous pack attacks them, animals perish--man writes the Constitution of the United States.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Men, Animal

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.284, Penguin

• Words are a lens to focus one's mind.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Focus, Mind

• If he can give his readers no reason why they should read his book, except that the events happened to him, it is not a valid book.

  Ayn Rand

  Book, Writing, Giving

  Ayn Rand (2000). “The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers”, p.22, Penguin

• By what he chooses to present and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Creative, Fundamentals

  Ayn Rand (2000). “The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers”, p.21, Penguin

• A reader has to be concerned only with the end result; unless he chooses to analyze it, he does not have to know by what means that result was achieved-but it is my job to know.

  Ayn Rand

  Jobs, Writing, Mean

  Ayn Rand (2000). “The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers”, p.110, Penguin

• The best, most natural dialogue is usually written as if the writer is listening to dictation. You might get stuck on any particular point and have to question yourself; but normally, dialogue writes itself.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Listening, Might

  Ayn Rand (2000). “The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers”, p.74, Penguin

• Even in dialogue, your own style rules your selection. Do not give yourself a blank check of this kind: 'I'll merely reproduce what I think a character like so-and-so would say.' You have to reproduce it in the way your literary premises dictate.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Character, Thinking

• If you write a whole line of zeroes, it's still — nothing.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Lines, Stills

  "The Unconquered: With Another, Earlier Adaptation of We the Living".

• It is a sin to write this.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Sin

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.5, Xist Publishing

• I write - and read - for the sake of the story... My basic test for any story is: 'Would I want to meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is this story an experience worth living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure of contemplating these characters an end itself?

  Ayn Rand

  Real, Writing, Character

  Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.10, Penguin

• You don't build for the way people live, but for the way they should live. I don't write about people as they are, but as they could be and should be.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, People, Way

  Ayn Rand (1997). “Letters of Ayn Rand”, p.135, Penguin

• Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Eye, Office

  Ayn Rand (1997). “Letters of Ayn Rand”, p.161, Penguin

• The art of writing is the art of doing what you think you're doing. This is not as simple as it sounds. It implies a very difficult undertaking: the necessity to think. And it implies the requirement to think out three separate, very hard problems: What is it you want to say? How are you going to say it? Have you really said it?

  Ayn Rand

  Art, Writing, Simple

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