A Quote by Michael Cunningham

Here's a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they'd intended to write.

Michael Cunningham

Quote Topics

Admit Being Being Honest Book Finished Honest Intended Many Novelists Pressed Rather Rough Secret Translation Will Write

Quote Author

Michael Cunningham
American - Novelist
Born: November 6, 1952

To be honest, I wrote so many drafts of this book [ The Nightingale ] and changed the characters so many times; the real surprise is that I finished the book at all.

Megan Chance

You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it's hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it's better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can't write anybody's book but your own.

Cheryl Strayed

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don't know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying - please let me live until I am finished.

Haruki Murakami

As a digital creator, there's been so much pressure to write a book because so many of my peers have done it. I've been very adamant about saying, "No! I don't want to release a book just for the sake of writing a book. I'm going to write a book when I feel like I have something to say in a book."

Lilly Singh

I have always thought, the secret purpose of the book tour is to make the writer hate the book he's written. And, as a result, drive him to write another book.

Salman Rushdie

For me, every translation is a new book, with the translator inevitably broadening the meaning of the original book in any translation.

Agustin Fernandez Mallo

I don't think we [with Kate DiCamillo] intended to write a book about friendship, I think we intended to write a book about two friends.

Alison McGhee

At that time, I had recently finished a book called Amazing Grace, which many people tell me is a very painful book to read. Well, if it was painful to read, it was also painful to write. I had pains in my chest for two years while I was writing that book.

Jonathan Kozol

I come up with a blurb at the beginning, but the book will always be completely different by the time it's finished. They say, 'Where's the book you were going to write?' And I say, 'Forget about it. It doesn't exist.'

Irvine Welsh

The book is a uniquely durable object, one that can be fully enjoyed without being damaged. A book doesn't require fuel, food, or service; it isn't very messy and rarely makes a noise. A book can be read over and over, then passed on to friends, or resold at a garage sale. A book will not crash or freeze and will still work when filled with sand. Even if it falls into the bath, it can be dried out and finished. Books require no special training to operate.

Lewis Buzbee

I think, for me, there's The Book I Should Write and The Book I Wanted to Write - and they weren't the same book. The Book I Should Write should be realistic, since I studied English Lit. It should be cultural. It should reflect where I am today. The Book I Wanted to Write would probably include flying women, magic, and all of that.

Marlon James

I want my words to survive translation. I know when I write a book now I will have to go and spend three days being intensely interrogated by journalists in Denmark or wherever. That fact, I believe, informs the way I write - with those Danish journalists leaning over my shoulder.

Kazuo Ishiguro

It may be important to write a book that doesn't come up to what I would like to have rather than to write no book at all.

Sheri S. Tepper

It's always a better choice to write a new book than it is to keep pounding your head against the submissions wall with a book that's just not happening. The next book you write could be the book, the one that isn't a fight to get representation for at all.

Diana Peterfreund

I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself.