Jessamyn West - Writing Quotes

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Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary.

Jessamyn West
There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist... lead through... the jungles of the self, the world, and of craft.

Jessamyn West
Writing is so difficult that I often feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.

Jessamyn West
Writing my name I raise an edifice
Whose size and shape appear to me
As homelike as the hexagon the bee
Builds for his own and honey's use.

Jessamyn West
Writing fiction is an almost certain way of making a fool of yourself.

Jessamyn West
Was Thoreau never lonely? Certainly. Where do you think writing like his comes from? Camaraderie?

Jessamyn West
You can only write about what you don't know, and find out about it in the writing.

Jessamyn West
If I had been told that Hemingway was seated at the next table, I would certainly have stared my eyes out. And perhaps been disappointed in what I saw. The best of a good writer — and Hemingway was a great one — goes into his writing. What's left over may be less than an eyeful.

Jessamyn West
Faithfulness to the past can be a kind of death above ground. Writing of the past is a resurrection; the past then lives in your words and you are free.

Jessamyn West
One can write out of love or hate. Hate tells one a great deal about a person. Love makes one become the person. Love, contrary to legend, is not half as blind, at least for writing purposes, as hate. Love can see the evil and not cease to be love. Hate cannot see the good and remain hate. The writer, writing out of hatred, will, thus, paint a far more partial picture than if he had written out of love.

Jessamyn West