Quotes Part 18
“It is a small world. You do not have to live in it particularly long to learn that for yourself. There is a theory that, in the whole world, there are only five hundred real people (the cast, as it were; all the rest of the people in the world, the theory suggests, are extras) and what is more, they all know each other. And it’s true, or true as far as it goes. In reality the world is made of thousands upon thousands of groups of about five hundred people, all of whom will spend their lives bumping into each other, trying to avoid each other, and discovering each other in the same unlikely teashop in Vancouver. There is an unavoidability to this process. It’s not even coincidence. It’s just the way the world works, with no regard for individuals or for propriety.” — Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys)
“Books aren’t written- they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.” Michael Crichton
“Half my life is an act of revision.” John Irving
“Writing is rewriting. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with the first draft to the point where one cannot change it is to greatly enhance the prospects of never publishing.” Richard North Patterson
“I have rewritten- often several times- every word I have ever written. My pencils outlast their erasers.” Vladimir Nabokov
“Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential.” Jessamyn West
“I rewrote the ending of ‘Farewell to Arms’ 39 times before I was satisfied.”- Ernest Hemingway
“When I was a young boy they called me a liar. Now that I’m all grown up, they call me a writer.” Isaac Singer
“The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.” John Steinbeck
I try to help people become the best possible editors of their own work, to help them become conscious of the things they do well, of the things they need to look at again, of the wells of material they have not even begun to dip their buckets into. Tobias Wolff