A Quote by Alice McDermott

Read everything. Write all the time. And if you can do anything else that gives you equal pleasure and allows you to sleep soundly at night, do that instead. The writing life is an odd one, to say the least.

Alice McDermott

Quote Topics

Anything Anything Else Else Equal Everything Gives Instead Least Life Life Is Life Is A Night Odd Odd One Pleasure Read Say Sleep Time Write Writing Writing Life

Quote Author

Alice McDermott
American - Writer
Born: June 27, 1953

I feel very privileged to get to read and write and not to have to do things that I don't like, and I don't want to give that up. Everything else is just a bonus and often a distraction from the writing, reading, and traveling that gives me the most pleasure.

Pankaj Mishra

I still sleep soundly every night. I'm not worried about everything people say.

Luis Suarez

The most important thing is you can't write what you wouldn't read for pleasure. It's a mistake to analyze the market thinking you can write whatever is hot. You can't say you're going to write romance when you don't even like it. You need to write what you would read if you expect anybody else to read it.

Nora Roberts

I guess I've been blessed with insomnia because I do a lot of my writing at night. Because I don't sleep as much as I probably should, I have that extra time to write weird stories and think odd thoughts.

Dan Chaon

Writing is writing to me. I'm incapable of saying no to any writing job, so I've done everything - historical fiction, myths, fairy tales, anything that anybody expresses any interest in me writing, I'll write. It's the same reason I used to read as a child: I like going somewhere else and being someone else.

Geraldine McCaughrean

Oh, how few find time for prayer! There is time for everything else, time to sleep and time to eat, time to read the newspaper and the novel, time to visit friends, time for everything else under the sun, but-no time for prayer, the most important of all things, the one great essential!

Oswald J. Smith

Human beings generally need between six and eight hours of restful sleep each night. Restful sleep means that you're not using pharmaceuticals or alcohol to get to sleep, but that you're drifting off easily once you turn off the light and are sleeping soundly through the night.

Deepak Chopra

I'm always amazed at friends who say they try to read at night in bed but always end up falling asleep. I have the opposite problem. If a book is good I can't go to sleep, and stay up way past my bedtime, hooked on the writing. Is anything better than waking up after a late-night read and diving right back into the plot before you even get out of bed to brush your teeth?

John Waters

Read more. Read every time you go to bed; read in the day - because at least, reading a book, you can't be distracted by anything else.

Theo James

When I say work I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs.

Margaret Laurence

Writing is harder than anything else; at least starting to write is.

Kristin Hunter

I sleep at night; I do not think about anything. I put everything in my bag and go to sleep. Whatever you can do to me, it does not affect me. I started my life, my own life. I did not inherit it.

Mohamed Al-Fayed

I sometimes get up at night when I can't sleep and walk down into my library and open one of my books and read a paragraph and say, 'My God, did I write that?

Ray Bradbury

You shouldn't say anything mean about people who can't read. You should write it instead.

Will Rogers

Thoughts are created in the act of writing. [It is a myth that] you must have something to say in order to write. Reality: You often need to write in order to have anything to say. Thought comes with writing, and writing may never come if it is postponed until we are satisfied that we have something to say...The assertion of write first, see what you had to say later applies to all manifestations of written language, to letters...as well as to diaries and journals