Barbara Kingsolver Writing Quotations

It's a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can't begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else.

I know I'm a rare person, a trained scientist who writes fiction, because so few contemporary novelists engage with science.

It takes some courage to write fiction about politically controversial topics. The dread is you'll be labeled a political writer.

I never think that anything I'm writing is bluntly political in any way. I'm not going for commentary.

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what to buy, want, see, be, or believe. It's more like conversation, raising new questions and moving you to answer them for yourself.

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

Because I write fiction that is based in the real world, it's going to lead people into some of the modern dilemmas and concerns and even catastrophes that they will think about in a new way.

There is no perfect time to write. There is only now.

It is harrowing for me to try to teach 20-year-old students, who earnestly want to improve their writing. The best I can think to tell them is: Quit smoking, and observe posted speed limits. This will improve your odds of getting old enough to be wise

I concentrate on character, theme, language, structure, voice. It actually surprises me that no matter what I write, people declare it "intently political." I'm just writing about the world I know, as it is. Wounds and griefs included.

Don't wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.

I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.

Literature duplicates the experience of living in a way that nothing else can, drawing you so fully into another life that you temporarily forget you have one of your own. That is why you read it, and might even sit up in bed till early dawn, throwing your whole tomorrow out of whack, simply to find out what happens to some people who, you know perfectly well, are made up.

He had senile dementia and liked to go outside naked, but he could still do two things perfectly: win at checkers and write out prescriptions.

Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan before it finally begins to work. It's discouraging, but necessary to write those pages. I try to consider them pages -100 to zero of the novel.

My way of finding a place in this world is to write one.

I struggle with confidence, every time. I'm never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won't want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it.

I don't *ever* write about real people. Art is supposed to be better than that. If you want a slice of life, look out the window.

The writing has been on the wall for some years now, but we are a nation illiterate in the language of the wall. The writing just gets bigger. Something will eventually bring down the charming, infuriating naïveté of Americans that allows us our blithe consumption and cheerful ignorance of the secret ugliness that bring us whatever we want.

The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.

Write a nonfiction book, and be prepared for the legion of readers who are going to doubt your fact. But write a novel, and get ready for the world to assume every word is true.

I'm widest awake as a writer doing something new, engaged in a process I'm not sure I can finish, generating at the edge of my powers. Some people bungee jump; I write.

This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it rejected. Consider that you've addressed it 'to the editor who can appreciate my work' and it has simply come back stamped 'Not at this address'. Just keep looking for the right address.

Silence has many advantages…I write and draw in my notebook and I read anything I please.

Pay attention to your passions. They are the key to starting and finishing the book you are meant to write. I don't believe in talent. I believe in passion.

If you're writing, you're a writer. If you're talking about it or thinking about it, I'm not so sure. Writing is ninety-eight percent work and two percent magic.

I know I have to write about the things that keep me awake at night.

I write every moment that is humanly possible. I write every day and every night. The only discipline I lack is the discipline is to quit.

Quit smoking in the hope of growing old. It takes a long time to write. People go to books for wisdom and older authors tend to have more of it.

In fact, one of the things that I really love about literary fiction is that it's one of the few kinds of writing that doesn't tell us what to think or what to buy or what to wear. We're surrounded by advertising.