"Yet I am incapable of writing the only kind of novel which interests me: a book powered with an intellectual or moral passion strong enough to create order, to create a new way of looking at life. It is because I am too diffused. I have decided never to write another novel. I have fifty 'subjects' I could write about; and they would be competent enough. If there is one thing we can be sure of, it is that competent and informative novels will continue to pour from the publishing houses. I have only one, and the least important, of the qualities necessary to write at all, and that is curiosity. It is the curiosity of the journalist."

Writing, Passion, Creation, Idea

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"Yet I am incapable of writing the only kind of novel which interests me: a book powered with an intellectual or moral passion strong enough to create order, to create a new way of looking at life. It is because I am too diffused. I have decided never to write another novel. I have fifty 'subjects' I could write about; and they would be competent enough. If there is one thing we can be sure of, it is that competent and informative novels will continue to pour from the publishing houses. I have only one, and the least important, of the qualities necessary to write at all, and that is curiosity. It is the curiosity of the journalist."

Exlpore more Writing quotes

"A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling, or teaching, or ordering. Rather, he seeks to establish a relationship with meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all our live trying to be less lonesome. And one of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say, and to feel, "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought." To finish is sadness to a writer, a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done."

John Steinbeck, American Author

Writing, Loneliness, Communication, Story

"Every writer has to figure out what works best - and often has to select and discard different tools before they find the one that fits."

Nora Roberts, American Author

Writing, Tools, Writer

"If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day."

Philip Pullman, British Writer

Writing, Day, Luck

"Certainly the plagiarism, and dealing with the fallout of it, was the most difficult thing I've ever faced since I started writing."

Nora Roberts, American Author

Writing, Plagiarism

"In the summer of '80, Silhouette bought my first book."

Nora Roberts, American Author

Writing, First, Summer

"Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it."

Toni Morrison, American Novelist

Writing, World

"Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone."

John Updike, American Novelist

Writing, May, Writers

"I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine."

Emily Dickinson, American Poet

Writing, Word, Power, Expression

"Every author believes, when his first book is published, that those that acclaim it are his personal friends or impersonal peers, while its revilers can only be envious rogues and nonentities."

Vladimir Nabokov, American Novelist

Writing, Ego, Criticism, Success

"In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them."

W. H. Auden, English Poet

Writing, May, Writer

Explore more quotes by Doris Lessing

"There's an unconscious bias in our society: girls are wonderful; boys are terrible. And to be a boy, or young man, growing up, having to listen to all this, it must be painful."

Equality

"Women often get dropped from memory, and then history."

History

"Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing."

Borrowing

"In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools."

Fool

"There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best."

Sin

"Laughter is by definition healthy."

Happiness

"That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way."

Life

"A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer."

Thought

"I think kids ought to travel. I think it's very good to carry kids around. It's good for them. Of course it's tough on the parents."

Travel

"There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be."

Law