Robertson Davies Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread. The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, Spiders, Asking

  Robertson Davies (1997). “The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books”, Viking Press

• There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.

  Robertson Davies

  Book, Writing, Mad

  "That difficult first novel" by Kate Kellaway, www.theguardian.com. March 24, 2007.

• I think of the author as somebody who goes into the marketplace and puts down his rug and says, 'I will tell you a story' and then he passes the hat.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, Thinking, Stories

  "Conversations with Robertson Davies".

• To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.

  Robertson Davies

  Book, Writing, Dope

  Robertson Davies (1949). “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks”, Clarke, Irwin

• I don't think I would ever write a book with what anybody could call pornography in it, because I feel that pornography is a cheat. It is an attempt to provide sexual experience by secondhand means. Now sex is a thing which has to be experienced firsthand, if you are really going to understand it, and pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars. It's not the same thing. Sex is primarily a question of relationships. Pornography is a do-it-yourself kit--a twenty-second best.

  Robertson Davies

  Sex, Book, Mean

• That is the operatic problem; the singer must keep up a big head of steam while trying to appear secretive, or seductive, or consumptive. Some ingenious composer should write an opera about a group of people who were condemned by a cruel god to scream all the time; it would be an instantaneous success, and a triumph of versimilitude.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, People, Seductive

  Robertson Davies (1986). “The papers of Samuel Marchbanks”, Viking, 1986

• The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, Tasks, Difficult

• May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery.

  Robertson Davies

  Sad, Depression, Writing

  Robertson Davies (1999). “"For Your Eye Alone": Letters 1976-1995”, McClelland & Stewart

• It is in this matter that I fall foul of so many American writers on writing; they seem to think that writing is a confidence game by means of which the author cajoles a restless, dull-witted, shallow audience into hearing his point of view. Such an attitude is base, and can only beget base prose.

  Robertson Davies

  Attitude, Fall, Mean

  "Elements of Style". Essay by Robertson Davies, 1959.

• Many authors write like amateur blacksmiths making their first horseshoe; the clank of the anvil, the stench of the scorched leather apron, the sparks and the cursing are palpable, and this appeals to those who rank "sincerity" very high. Nabokov is more like a master swordsmith making a fine blade; nothing is amiss, nothing is too much, there is no fuss, and the finished product must be handled with great care, or it will cut you badly.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, Cutting, Care

  Review of Nabokov's Lolita, 1958.

• Great drama, drama that may reach the alchemical level, must have dimension and its relevance will take care of itself. Writing about AIDS rather than the cocktail set, or possibly the fairy kingdom, will not guarantee importance. . . . The old comment that all periods of time are at an equal distance from eternity says much, and pondering on it will lead to alchemical theatre while relevance becomes old hat.

  Robertson Davies

  Distance, Drama, Writing

  Robertson Davies (1999). “Happy Alchemy: On the Pleasures of Music and the Theatre”, Penguin Group USA

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