A Quote by Colum McCann

Ultimately, you can only ever write what you know. It's logically and philosophically impossible to write what you don't know.

Colum McCann

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Ever Impossible Know Only Ultimately Write

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Colum McCann
Irish - Writer
Born: February 28, 1965

The only piece of advice I've ever given anybody is learn to write songs and write as many songs as you can. Because it's never gonna hurt, and when you run into that problem of, 'God, I don't know what I want to say,' or the opposite problem of, 'I know exactly what I want to say, but no one has written it,' then you can just go write it yourself.

Chris Young

People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

Toni Morrison

I know exactly what I want to write. I do not write until I do. Usually I write it all down only once. And that goes relatively quickly, since it really depends only on how fast I type.

Hannah Arendt

Ever hear the expression "write what you know?" My version says "write what you want to know." If you want to know about the history of Spain, write about the history of Spain - fiction or nonfiction. If your fascinated by the old west, maybe your character lives there.

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

The old adage is, 'Write what you know.' But if you only do that, your work becomes claustrophobic. I say, 'Write what you want to know.'

Julia Glass

You'd only write what you know and what you know is what you do and the people you know. So you'd write about them or the people you have met casually. It's part of your life.

Carl Reiner

We write to find out what we didn’t know we knew. We write to know deeper and truer. We write to connect the dots: a whole new constellation.

Carolyn Coman

I write what I write in the way that I write it. I'm not being abstract, you know. I'm talking about something that, you know, is a part of my life.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Oh, you know what bloggers are like, they write and write and write. I don't know why, because they're not being paid.

Jon Ronson

The most common thing I find is very brilliant, acute, young people who want to become writers but they are not writing. You know, they really badly want to write a book but they are not writing it. The only advice I can give them is to just write it, get to the end of it. And, you know, if it's not good enough, write another one.

Teju Cole

I write about the power of trying, because I want to be okay with failing. I write about generosity because I battle selfishness. I write about joy because I know sorrow. I write about faith because I almost lost mine, and I know what it is to be broken and in need of redemption. I write about gratitude because I am thankful - for all of it.

Kristin Armstrong

I write to explore something that fascinates me, and I write the way I do because it is the only way I know how to write.

Cathy Marie Buchanan

I never know the endings when I write. It's a turnoff when you know the ending. You lose much of your incentive to write when you already know. It's like seeing a movie a second time.

Etgar Keret

For the years I spent working on it, 'Constellation' was the only novel I knew how to write, so maybe I still abided by the maxim? Regardless, I prefer the maxim: Write what you want to know, rather than what you already know.

Anthony Marra

For years I've wanted to write about the Australian countryside, but, like most Australians, I've only got a tourist's knowledge of it. I thought that if I disobeyed that basic rule of writing - write about what you know - I'd write a thin and inauthentic book.

Kate Grenville

I began to write when I was seven, and I have been writing off and on ever since. It is still off and on. You can say that when I am on, when I know I have a book which I am going to write, then I write two thousand words a day. That's so many pages longhand.

William Golding

A Quote by Colum McCann

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