“Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create an artificial sense of profundity.”
Work
"If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write."<p>In 1999, Stephen King began to write about his craft -- and his life. By midyear, a widely reported accident jeopardized the survival of both. And in his months of recovery, the link between writing and living became more crucial than ever.<p>Rarely has a book on writing been so clear, so useful, and so revealing. <i>On Writing</i> begins with a mesmerizing account of King's childhood and his uncannily early focus on writing to tell a story. A series of vivid memories from adolescence, college, and the struggling years that led up to his first novel, <i>Carrie,</i> will afford readers a fresh and often very funny perspective on the formation of a writer. King next turns to the basic tools of his trade -- how to sharpen and multiply them through use, and how the writer must always have them close at hand. He takes the reader through crucial aspects of the writer's art and life, offering practical and inspiring advice on everything from plot and character development to work habits and rejection. <p>Serialized in the <i>New Yorker</i> to vivid acclaim, <i>On Writing</i> culminates with a profoundly moving account of how King's overwhelming need to write spurred him toward recovery, and brought him back to his life.<p>Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, <i>On Writing</i> will empower -- and entertain -- everyone who reads it.
Quotes
Showing 25-43 of 43
Stephen King
Canonical work source
“Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create an artificial sense of profundity.”
“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or despair ... Come to it any way but lightly.”
“The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.”
“It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”
“You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”
“Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, saili...”
“Membacalah empat jam sehari dan menulislah empat jam sehari. Kalau kau tidak bisa meluangkan waktu untuk itu, jangan harap kau bisa menjadi penulis yang baik.”
“Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. Good description is a learned skill,one of the prime reasons you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot...”
“Books are a uniquely portable magic”
“I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a disp...”
“Some of this book—perhaps too much—has been about how I learned to do it. Much of it has been about how you can do it better. The rest of it—and perhaps the best of it—is a permission slip:...”
“I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book — something in which the reader can get happily lost, i...”
“When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.”
“I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever publ...”
“Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do― to face the fact, l...”
“Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question...”
“So okay― there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You've blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand w...”
“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”