I think most writers, even the best, overwrite. I prefer to underwrite. Simple, clear as a country creek.
—Truman Capote
Clear as a Country Creek
Tag: Writing
A Quality of Redemption
I’m a disciple of Raymond Chandler, who said in his essays that there’s a quality of redemption in anything that can be called art.
– Michael Connelly
The Well
I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.
– Ernest Hemingway
Nothing to it…
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
– Ernest Hemingway
Simply the best…
For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.
– Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway’s Rules
There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
—Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway’s Golden Ratio…
I write one page of masterpiece to ninety nine pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the waste-basket.
—Ernest Hemingway
Looking into the Abyss
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote that when you look into the darkness of the abyss the abyss looks into you. Probably no other line or thought more inspires or informs my work.
– Michael Connelly
You don’t need demons
“I know there’s evil in the world, and there always has been. But you don’t need to believe in Satan or demons to explain it. Human beings are perfectly capable of evil all by themselves.”
― Tess Gerritsen, The Mephisto Club
The swirl and swing of words
I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
—James Michener
