James Salter - Writing Quotes

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I write in longhand. I am accustomed to that proximity, that feel of writing. Then I sit down and type. And then I retype, correct, retype, and keep going until it's finished. It's been demonstrated to me many times that there is some inefficiency in this, but I find that the ease of moving a paragraph is not really what I need.

James Salter

Writing is not a science, and of course there are exceptions, but every writer I know and admire has essentially drawn either from his own life or his knowledge of things in life. Great dialogue, for instance, is very difficult to invent. Almost all great books have actual people in them.

James Salter

I hate the first inexact, inadequate expression of things. The whole joy of writing comes from the opportunity to go over it and make it good, one way or another.

James Salter

The notion that anything can be invented wholly and that these invented things are classified as fiction and that other writing, presumably not made up, is called nonfiction strikes me as a very arbitrary separation of things.

James Salter

I find the most difficult part of writing is to get it down initially because what you have written is usually so terrible that it's disheartening, you don't want to go on.

James Salter

There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.

James Salter

I like to write. I'm moved by writing. One can't analyze it beyond that.

James Salter

Too much electricity will make your reader's hair frizzy. There's a question of pacing. You want short sentences and long sentences—well, every writer knows that. You have to develop a certain ease of delivery and make your writing agreeable to read.

James Salter