A Quote by Joe Haldeman

The worst advice a young writer can get is "Write what you know." Imagination is more important than experience.

Joe Haldeman

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Advice Experience Get Imagination Important Know More Than Worst Write Writer Young

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Joe Haldeman
American - Author
Born: June 9, 1943

I always ask young writers, 'Are you certain you want to be a writer? If you're absolutely sure, then do it.' If you really want to write, writing has to take precedence over everything else, except for taking care of your loved ones. It has to be more important than any possession, more important than fame. We hear about just a few writers who get famous, but most of them don't. It's got to mean more than that.

Herbert Gold

That's my gutsy advice to any young writer: write only about what you know well.

Amos Oz

If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is 'Just do it!' Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write.

S. E. Hinton

I guess my music career is my personal life. You know, I've always been a writer who wants to write about my experiences. And so this experience being added to that, I - I want to live extraordinary experiences. And when I give advice to people, I want it to be sage advice.

Jason Mraz

You don't know what you need when you're a young writer. You can get small slivers of critical input, advice, comments, but if you're deep in the perplexity of your own process, as you should be, sorting it out in your own way, nothing is going to guide you more than small gestures of encouragement.

David Means

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

My biggest bits of advice are, write as much as you can, finish what you start, get a thick skin, don't take crap from anyone, but also live your life and have fun. The stereotype of a writer holed up alone all day is really unhelpful. You can't write real people and real emotion if you don't let yourself experience them.

Victoria Aveyard

I can give advice to anyone interested in writing in one word: Read! I think it's much more important to be a reader than to be a writer!

Linda Sue Park

You know, as a writer, I'm more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something I will write it down.

Jimmy Buffett

The power of imagination is the ultimate creative power.. no doubt about that. While knowledge defines all we currently know and understand.. imagination points to all we might yet discover and create. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions

Albert Einstein

Not write what you know, but know what you write. If you write about a world before, after, or other than this one, enter that world completely. Search it to find your deepest longings and most terrible fears. Let imagination carry you as far as it may, as long as you recount the voyage with excitement and wonder. But this is the most important rule: write the book you most long to read.

Steven Saylor

What I find to be very bad advice is the snappy little sentence, 'Write what you know.' It is the most tiresome and stupid advice that could possibly be given. If we write simply about what we know we never grow. We don't develop any facility for languages, or an interest in others, or a desire to travel and explore and face experience head-on. We just coil tighter and tighter into our boring little selves. What one should write about is what interests one.

Annie Proulx

There are some advantages to being a writer: you do generally get better as you get older. I think I understand things better. When I was a kid, I was kind of guessing at the emotion. Now I'm interested in writing more difficult books, books that confront the facts of life, of death and dying and failure - the majority of life. You write outwardly imaginative books when you're younger. When you're older you apply imagination to internal experience.

Ethan Canin

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Imagination is the language of the soul. Pay attention to your imagination and you will discover all you need to be fulfilled.

Albert Einstein

The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd.

Charles Bukowski

When you are young nothing is more important than football but as you get older, you get married, have kids and lose people. Then you realise your family is more important. This comes with age.

Jermain Defoe

A Quote by Joe Haldeman

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