John Fowles Quotes about Writing

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There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.

There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.

John Fowles

Writing, Novelists, Needs

We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.

John Fowles

Writing, Reading Poetry, Poetry

1969 The French Lieutenant's Woman, ch.19.

To write poetry and to commit suicide, apparently so contradictory, had really been the same, attempts at escape.

John Fowles

Suicide, Writing, Contradictory

John Fowles (1965). “The Magus”

On the whole, dialogue is the most difficult thing, without any doubt. It's very difficult, unfortunately. You have to detach yourself from the notion of a lifelike quality. You see, actually lifelike, tape-recorded dialogue like this has very little to do with good novel dialogue. It's a matter of getting that awful tyranny of mimesis out of your mind, which is difficult.

John Fowles

Writing, Doubt, Mind

He felt himself in suspension between the two worlds, the warm, neat civilization behind his back, the cool, dark mystery outside. We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.

John Fowles

Writing, Dark, Civilization

1969 The French Lieutenant's Woman, ch.19.

Like all mystics (and many novelists, not least the present one) he is baffled, a child, before the real now; far happier out of it, in a narrative past or a prophetic future, locked inside that weird tence grammar does not allow, the imaginary present.

John Fowles

Children, Real, Writing

John Fowles (1985). “A Maggot”, Jonathan Cape

It's no good. I've been trying to sleep for the last half-hour, and I can't. Writing here is a sort of drug. It's the only thing I look forward to. This afternoon I read what I wrote... And it seemed vivid. I know it seems vivid because my imagination fills in all the bits another person wouldn't understand. I mean, it's vanity. But it seems a sort of magic... And I just can't live in this present. I would go mad if I did

John Fowles

Writing, Mean, Sleep

John Fowles (2010). “The Collector”, p.165, Random House

The absurdly neurotic role you and the rest of your kind have always attributed to me Erato, the Goddess Muse of Erotic Poetry bears no relation at all to reality. As a matter of fact, I was trained as a clinical psychologist. Who simply happens to have specialized in the mental illness that you, in your ignorance, call literature.

John Fowles

Writing, Ignorance, Reality

The diary will really try and tell people who you are and what you were. The alternative is writing nothing, or creating a totally lifeless, as it is leafless, garden.

John Fowles

Writing, Garden, Creating

2003 The Journals: Volume 1.

John Fowles Quotes about Writing

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