“I’m sure you’ve run into people who’ve said, “If I just had the time, I could write a book.” Everybody thinks they can write a book. And everybody’s life story could be the subject of a book — I don’t care who they are. It depends how you approach it. But writing itself, either you have it or you don’t have it. -->”

1970s-, The Captains, the Kings, and Taylor Caldwell (1978)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I’m sure you’ve run into people who’ve said, “If I just had the time, I could write a book.” Everybody thinks they can …" by Taylor Caldwell?
Taylor Caldwell photo
Taylor Caldwell 31
Novelist 1900–1985

Related quotes

John James Audubon photo

“I cannot write at all, but if I could how could I make a little book, when I have seen enough to make a dozen large books? I will not write at all.”

John James Audubon (1785–1851) American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter

Journal entry in Audubon and His Journals (1897), edited by Maria R. Audubon, Vol. I, "The European Journals 1826 - 1829", p. 184

Hélène Cixous photo
John Updike photo

“I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Source: Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism

Junot Díaz photo
Hisham Matar photo
Desmond Morris photo
Maya Angelou photo
Diana Gabaldon photo

“When I decided to write a novel, I had two full time jobs and three children under the age of six, so I don’t want anyone telling me they don’t have time to write a book, but I learned to work in the middle of the night, and I still do that…”

Diana Gabaldon (1952) American author

On balancing novel writing with her personal life in “Diana Gabaldon on Her ‘Outlander’ Writing Process & Knowing Sam Heughan Was Jamie” https://collider.com/diana-gabaldon-outlander-interview/ in Collider (2018 Aug 2)

Umberto Eco photo

“I am mimetic. If I write a book set in the seventeenth century, I write in a Baroque style. If I’m writing a book set in a newspaper office, I write in Journalese.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

quoted in Marco Belpoliti, " Umberto Eco: How I Wrote my Books http://en.doppiozero.com/materiali/interviste/umberto-eco-how-I-wrote-my-books" (2015)

Amy Tan photo

“Yin people ring the bells, saying, "Pay attention." And you say, "Oh, I see now." Yet I'm a fairly skeptical person. I'm educated, I'm reasonably sane, and I know that this subject is fodder for ridicule. … To write the book, I had to put that aside. As with any book. I go through the anxiety, "What will people think of me for writing something like this?" But ultimately, I have to write what I have to write about, including the question of life continuing beyond our ordinary senses.”

Amy Tan (1952) American novelist

SALON Interview (1995)
Context: I've long thought about how life is influenced by death, how it influences what you believe in and what you look for. Yes, I think I was pushed in a way to write this book by certain spirits — the yin people — in my life. They've always been there, I wouldn't say to help, but to kick me in the ass to write.... Yin people is the term Kwan uses, because "ghosts" is politically incorrect. People have such terrible assumptions about ghosts — you know, phantoms that haunt you, that make you scared, that turn the house upside down. Yin people are not in our living presence but are around, and kind of guide you to insights. Like in Las Vegas when the bells go off, telling you you've hit the jackpot. Yin people ring the bells, saying, "Pay attention." And you say, "Oh, I see now." Yet I'm a fairly skeptical person. I'm educated, I'm reasonably sane, and I know that this subject is fodder for ridicule.... To write the book, I had to put that aside. As with any book. I go through the anxiety, "What will people think of me for writing something like this?" But ultimately, I have to write what I have to write about, including the question of life continuing beyond our ordinary senses.

Related topics