“You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.”

—  Grace Paley

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else." by Grace Paley?
Grace Paley photo
Grace Paley 31
American writer and activist 1922–2007

Related quotes

R. K. Narayan photo

“You become writer by writing . It is a yoga .”

R. K. Narayan (1906–2001) writer of Indian English literature
Anatole France photo

“You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

On devient bon écrivain comme on devient bon menuisier: en rabotant ses phrases.
As quoted in Anatole France en pantoufles by Jean-Jacques Brousson (1924); published in English as Anatole France Himself: A Boswellian Record by His Secretary, Jean-Jacques Brousson (1925), trans. John Pollock, p. 85
Variant translation: You become a good writer just as you become a good carpenter: by planing down your sentences.

Harlan Ellison photo

“The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.”

Voices of Vision: Creators of Science Fiction and Fantasy, page 182 https://books.google.com/books/about/Voices_of_Vision.html?id=Nu4vUZT-7ToC&hl=en
Source: Strange Wine

Nelson Algren photo

“Well, here you get to be a writer when there's absolutely nothing else you can do.”

Nelson Algren (1909–1981) American novelist, short story writer

"The Art of Fiction No. 11" (1955)
Context: I don't think the isolation of the American writer is a tradition; it's more that geographically he just is isolated, unless he happens to live in New York City. But I don't suppose there's a small town around the country that doesn't have a writer. The thing is that here you get to be a writer differently. I mean, a writer like Sartre decides, like any professional man, when he's fifteen, sixteen years old, that instead of being a doctor he's going to be a writer. And he absorbs the French tradition and proceeds from there. Well, here you get to be a writer when there's absolutely nothing else you can do. I mean, I don't know of any writers here who just started out to be writers, and then became writers. They just happen to fall into it.

“Oh, son, I wish you hadn’t become a scenario writer!”

S.J. Perelman (1904–1979) American humorist, author, and screenwriter

she sniffled.
"Aw, now, Moms," I comforted her, "it’s no worse than playing the piano in a call house."
"Strictly from Hunger", The Most of S. J. Perelman (1992) p. 45

Mario Vargas Llosa photo
Rod Serling photo

“If you need drugs to be a good writer, you're not a good writer.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

The Rod Serling bio page on the Internet Movie DataBase.
Other

Robin McKinley photo
E.L. Doctorow photo

“The writer isn’t made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.”

E.L. Doctorow (1931–2015) novelist, editor, professor

Interview in Writers at Work (1988)

Related topics