Neil Gaiman Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

  Neil Gaiman

  Moving, Writing, Perfection

  "Ten rules for writing fiction", www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2010.

• May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

  Neil Gaiman

  Inspirational, Life, Dream

• We have the right, and the obligation, to tell old stories in our own ways, because they are our stories.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Rights, Stories

  Neil Gaiman (2002). “Adventures in the Dream Trade”, N E S F A Press

• Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

  Neil Gaiman

  Inspirational, Motivational, Cancer

  Neil Gaiman (2012). “Coraline”, p.7, A&C Black

• You have to finish things - that's what you learn from, you learn by finishing things.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Design, Finishing

  "Neil Gaiman’s Advice to Aspiring Writers" by Maria Popova, www.brainpickings.org. September 11, 2013.

• The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.

  Neil Gaiman

  Inspirational, Dance, Love Yourself

• Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.

  Neil Gaiman

  Jobs, Writing, Winning

• The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Needs, Stories

  "Ten rules for writing fiction" by Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James, AL Kennedy, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2010.

• Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose.

  Neil Gaiman

  Book, Writing, Body

• Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Thinking, People

  "Ten rules for writing fiction" by Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James, AL Kennedy, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2010.

• I don't think immediate tragedy is a very good source of art. It can be, but too often it's raw and painful and un-dealt-with. Sometimes art can be a really good escape from the intolerable, and a good place to go when things are bad, but that doesn't mean you have to write directly about the bad thing; sometimes you need to let time pass, and allow the thing that hurts to get covered with layers, and then you take it out, like a pearl, and you make art out of it.

  Neil Gaiman

  Art, Hurt, Mean

• Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, May, Matter

  "Somewhat Less Sinister Ducks". Personal Website, journal.neilgaiman.com. April 23, 2004.

• Do the stuff that only you can do. The urge, starting out, is to copy. And that's not a bad thing. Most of us only find our own voices after we've sounded like a lot of other people. But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Heart, Play

  Neil Gaiman's Commencement Address at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, www.uarts.edu. May 17, 2012.

• This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard.

  Neil Gaiman

  Inspiring, Writing, Creativity

• Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.

  Neil Gaiman

  Lying, Writing, Stories

• If you are pointing out one of the things a story is about, then you are very probably right; if you are pointing out the only thing a story is about you are very probably wrong - even if you're the author.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Stories, Ifs

• Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing

  "Ten rules for writing fiction" by Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James and AL Kennedy, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2010.

• I'm writing. The pages are starting to stack up. My morale is improving the more I feel like a writer.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Pages, Starting

• You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Ideas, Differences

  "Where do you get your ideas?" by Neil Gaiman, www.neilgaiman.com. 1997.

• You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different.

  Neil Gaiman

  Beach, Writing, Sky

• All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Night, Stories

• All fiction is a process of imagining: whatever you write, in whatever genre or medium, your task is to make things up convincingly and interestingly and new.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Tasks, Fiction

  "Where do you get your ideas?". Essay by Neil Gaiman, Personal website, www.neilgaiman.com.

• The best advice I can give on this is, once it's done, to put it away until you can read it with new eyes. Finish the short story, print it out, then put it in a drawer and write other things. When you're ready, pick it up and read it, as if you've never read it before. If there are things you aren't satisfied with as a reader, go in and fix them as a writer: that's revision.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Eye, Giving

• Set your fantasies in the here and now and then, if challenged, claim to be writing Magical Realism.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Magic Realism, Fantasy

• Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

  Neil Gaiman

  Moving, Writing, Perfection

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