“What I adore is supreme professionalism. I’m bored by writers who can write only when it’s raining.”
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Noel Coward49
English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer 1899–1973Related quotes
“I always say that I’m a writer who writes more from place than race.”
Katori Hall (1981) American playwright
On the theme that she most explores in “Art Talk with Playwright Katori Hall” https://www.arts.gov/art-works/2015/art-talk-playwright-katori-hall (National Endowment of the Arts; 2015 May 28)
Jamaica Kincaid (1949) Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer
On her views of writing in “Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?” https://www.guernicamag.com/does-truth-have-a-tone/ in Guernica (2013 Jun 17)
“You can only learn to be a better writer by actually writing.”
Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer
Interview with Herbert Mitgang, "Mrs. Lessing Addresses Some of Life's Puzzles," The New York Times (22 April 1984)
Context: You can only learn to be a better writer by actually writing. I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.
Reinaldo Arenas (1943–1990) Cuban poet/novelist/playwright
Source: On a writer’s responsibility in “The Literature of Uprootedness: An Interview with Reinaldo Arenas” https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-literature-of-uprootedness-an-interview-with-reinaldo-arenas in The New Yorker (2013 Dec 5)
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer
Radio interview (1939) quoted in Introduction by Robert DeMott to a 1992 edition of The Grapes of Wrath
Context: Boileau said that Kings, Gods and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires. Present-day kings aren't very inspiring, the gods are on a vacation and about the only heroes left are the scientists and the poor … And since our race admires gallantry, the writer will deal with it where he finds it. He finds it in the struggling poor now.