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Joy Williams Quotes about Writing

All Joy Williams Quotes Writing quotes
The writer trusts nothing she writes-it should be too reckless and alive for that, it should be beautiful and menacing and slightly out of control. . . . Good writing . . . explodes in the reader's face. Whenever the

The writer trusts nothing she writes-it should be too reckless and alive for that, it should be beautiful and menacing and slightly out of control. . . . Good writing . . . explodes in the reader's face. Whenever the writer writes, it's always three or four or five o'clock in the morning in her head.

Joy Williams
Beautiful, Morning, Writing

It's become fashionable these days to say that the writer writes because he is not whole, he has a wound, he writes to heal it, but who cares if the writer is not whole; of course the writer is not whole, or even particularly well.

Joy Williams
Writing, Who Cares, These Days
Joy Williams (2015). “Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals”, p.177, Rowman & Littlefield

There is something unwholesome and destructive about the entire writing process.

Joy Williams
Writing, Process, Writing Process

One writes to find words' meanings.

Joy Williams
Writing

Why does the writer write? The writer writes to serve--hopeless ly he writes in the hope that he might serve--not himself and not others, but that great cold elemental grace that knows us.

Joy Williams
Writing, Grace, Doe
Joy Williams (2015). “Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals”, p.184, Rowman & Littlefield

The writer doesn’t write for the reader. He doesn’t write for himself, either. He writes to serve…something. Somethingness. The somethingness that is sheltered by the wings of nothingness — those exquisite, enveloping, protecting wings.

Joy Williams
Writing, Wings, Reader
Joy Williams (2015). “Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals”, p.181, Rowman & Littlefield

Good writing never soothes or comforts. It is no prescription, neither is it diversionary, although it can and should enchant while it explodes in the reader's face.

Joy Williams
Writing, Comfort, Faces
Joy Williams (2015). “Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals”, p.181, Rowman & Littlefield

Writers when they're writing live in a spooky, clamorous silence, a state somewhat like the advanced stages of prayer but without prayer's calming benefits.

Joy Williams
Prayer, Writing, Silence
Joy Williams (2015). “Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals”, p.177, Rowman & Littlefield

Writers end up writing stories-or rather, stories' shadows-and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough

Joy Williams
Grateful, Writing, Shadow

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