A Quote by Gail Godwin

I work continuously within the shadow of failure. For every novel that makes it to my publisher's desk, there are at least five or six that died on the way. And even with the ones I do finish, I think of all the ways they might have been better.

Gail Godwin

Quote Topics

Been Better Continuously Desk Died Even Every Failure Finish Five Least Makes Might Might Have Been Novel Publisher Shadow Six Think Way Ways Within Work

Quote Author

Gail Godwin
American - Novelist
Born: June 18, 1937

I often think, "How many ways have I died in the movies?" I guess I can find out now. I'm always thinking of ways that I haven't died. "Well, I've been killed this way in this movie, but I haven't died this way yet." I don't think I've ever been guillotined, or anything like that.

Samuel L. Jackson

If there'd been a better-balanced society, where there were other ways of making a decent living, I think it might have been different. That's not the way this setup work.

W. S. Merwin

It is important to send your work to as many publishers as possible. For every one publisher who may show interest in your work, there will be at least five who will reject you.

Ravi Subramanian

As soon as I finished 'The Finkler Question,' I was in despair. I'd changed my English publisher because they'd been lukewarm about it and not offered enough money. The American publisher didn't like it. The Canadian publisher didn't like it... I'd been bleeding readers since my first novel, and I could see my own career going down.

Howard Jacobson

When I complete a novel I set it aside, and begin work on short stories, and eventually another long work. When I complete that novel I return to the earlier novel and rewrite much of it. In the meantime the second novel lies in a desk drawer.

Joyce Carol Oates

There's no gap between the writer and the performer, which is what I think makes [Monty] Python unique. Five or six people who write Python and five or six who act it. That's what makes it unique.

Eric Idle

I got a statistic for you right now. Grab your pencil, Doug. There are five billion trees in the world. I looked it up. Under every tree is a shadow, right? So, then, what makes night? I'll tell you: shadows crawling out from under five billion trees! Think of it! Shadows running around in the air, muddying the waters you might say. If only we could figure a way to keep those darn five billion shadows under those trees, we could stay up half the night, Doug, because there'd be no night!

Ray Bradbury

I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice and I read much in the way that a boy might watch television.

John McGahern

I'm, like, not overly into labels. I've been referred to that way, but I tend to think of political cartoonists as constantly at it, producing more work than I do. I do, what, six or eight covers a year, maybe, and a bunch of illustrations as well, but how many do you create a year? I'm in awe of that, and I think the term implies being at it every day or at least weekly.

Barry Blitt

There is no right or wrong way to write a novel. Each journey is different for every individual work and for every writer. The first error is never to begin; the second is never to finish.

Don Roff

I've died so many times. I'm 65. On my 40th birthday, my girlfriend gave me a reel with ways I had died, whether it was by knife, or electrocution or drowning or being thrown off a building or whatever it might have been. I've died a lot of times!

Jonathan Banks

All my life I have been trying to learn, to read, to see and hear, and to write. At sixty-five I began my first novel and after the five years, lacking a month, I took to finish it, I was still traveling, still a seeker.

Carl Sandburg

When I worked with Robin Williams, now there is improv! He is just as funny as you think he is. We did at least five or six takes of every scene, improvising every scene differently. He was a riot.

Stephen Root

You know that feeling when you finish a final exam and you think, 'I never want to do that again'? Well I have the same feeling when I finish a novel. Each time I say, 'I think I may retire now' and then after six months the ideas start to churn again. I could never stop.