Writing every book, the writer must solve two problems: Can it be done? and, Can I do it? Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles.

Annie Dillard
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded... - F. Scott Fitzgerald

  2. Five common traits of good writers: (1) They have something to say. (2) They read widely and have done so since childhood. (3) They possess what Isaac Asimov calls a "capacity for clear thought, " able to go from point to point in an orderly... - James J. Kilpatrick

  3. There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean — hell, I know that. - Stephen King

  4. Murphy is a writer's best friend, but you have to keep an eye on him, or he'll steal the silver. - Patricia C. Wrede

  5. Art is too often discounted as a secondary priority. The writer is necessary to society. - Kayla Rae Whitaker

More Quotes By Annie Dillard
  1. How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

  2. Spend the afternoon, you can't take it with you.

  3. You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

  4. Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?

  5. Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?

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