T.C. Boyle Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• I can't be reading novels when I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in. The hardest thing to do is keep the tone and your attitude over the course of a year or however long it takes.But when I'm writing short stories, which I will be doing shortly, I can read anything I like.

  T.C. Boyle

  Attitude, Reading, Writing

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Music is, by far, the best art. Nothing even comes close. It's so immediate and emotional. In writing, maybe ninety percent of it is the unconscious and ten percent is control. In music, I think it's probably more like ninety-nine percent the unconscious. It's just a beautiful thing happening through you. And so, too, is writing a great story.

  T.C. Boyle

  Beautiful, Art, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

• Some writers just write about their own lives. Well, I don't want to do that. I want to have a really boring life. A quiet, boring life so no one wants to write a biography. I'm the only writer in history only to have one wife, for instance.

  T.C. Boyle

  Writing, Wife, Want

  Source: www.pbs.org

• When you're in the midst of writing, it's a beautiful thing happening through you. Many people have said that it's not you, it's the soul of humankind and so on, I don't know. But it has the same effect [as music]. It takes you out of your body and out of this planet.

  T.C. Boyle

  Beautiful, Writing, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• I like to joke that you usually write more books before death than after death, so that's why I'm doing it. But really, I remain engaged with ideas. There are so many things happening that turn me on and I just want to examine them.

  T.C. Boyle

  Book, Writing, Ideas

  Source: therumpus.net

• I don't think we need a critic to negotiate with the audience. People say, "Who are you writing for?" I'm writing for myself but my audience is anybody who knows how to read. I think a story should engage anybody who knows how to read. And I hope that my stories do, maybe on a different level for more sophisticated readers than, say, a high school kid, but still a story has got to grab you. That's why we read it.

  T.C. Boyle

  Writing, School, Kids

  Source: therumpus.net

• But then, that's the beauty of writing stories-each one is an exploratory journey in search of a reason and a shape. And when you find that reason and that shape, there's no feeling like it.

  T.C. Boyle

  Writing, Journey, Feelings

• I've had many students over the years, sometimes even very sophisticated students, who will be writing and will hit a wall. Often I find it's because they're working out of sequence. Maybe some people can do that, but I don't think that's how fiction works. It's a discovery.

  T.C. Boyle

  Wall, Writing, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

• The professorial dictum has always been to write what you know, but I say write what you don't know and find something out. And it works.

  T.C. Boyle

  Writing, Knows

  T.C. Boyle (2013). “T.C. Boyle Stories II: The Collected Stories of T. Coraghessan Boyle”, p.16, Penguin

• You don't write the kitchen scene just because you're eager to do it that day and you're avoiding something else. I think it has to move slowly, step by step. I pride myself on the construction of my stories but it's not something I impose on them.

  T.C. Boyle

  Moving, Writing, Pride

  Source: therumpus.net

• I'm pretty hardcore. I stick exactly to what I'm doing. So I write a novel in one period, and then I'll write stories in another period. I only work on one thing at once, because I'm afraid that I wouldn't finish what I'd started.

  T.C. Boyle

  Writing, Stories, Sticks

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I don't know who they are[my characters] . They're entirely invented characters. Maybe that's how I've been able to write so many books, because there are no boundaries for me. I can write a completely fantastical story like "Swept Away" or "Blinded by the Light" and then a non-comic drama like "Chicxulub" or something like "Birnam Wood" that has autobiographical underpinnings. Why not?

  T.C. Boyle

  Drama, Book, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

• I'm just having fun making jokes and writing books. But you see me once a year, I come on when I have a new book out, but basically, I've got my nose to the grindstone and I'm doing what I'm supposed to do in life, which is make stories.

  T.C. Boyle

  Fun, Book, Writing

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Writing is a channeling of an individual experience; so is reading. That's what's so exciting about this art form - it's interactive.

  T.C. Boyle

  Art, Reading, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

• I always dread the process of writing because I'm not a writer. I'm an audible guy, I'm a verbal guy. I love to talk. I write a book every couple years, but it just takes everything out of me to get a book out.

  T.C. Boyle

  Couple, Book, Writing

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I'm a product of state schools. I had a working-class family. We had no books. I was the first to go to college. But I didn't really think about it, or about making money. I was just going to be an artist, and I've been fortunate. I've never had to work for anybody nor have I had to write for money. Maybe that's another reason that I've been able to be productive. I haven't had to use my writing to make a living.

  T.C. Boyle

  Book, Writing, School

  Source: therumpus.net

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