Nelson Algren Quotes about Writing

You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to

You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.

Nelson Algren

Writing, Blow, Creative

"Nonconformity: Writing on Writing". Book by Nelson Algren, 1996.

Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.

Nelson Algren

Writing, Knows

Nelson Algren, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1942). “Never Come Morning”, p.295, Seven Stories Press

I'm not against sentimentality. I think you need it. I mean, I don't think you get a true picture of people without it in writing... It's a kind of poetry, it's an emotional poetry, and, to bring it back to the literary scene, I don't think anything is true that doesn't have it, that doesn't have poetry in it.

Nelson Algren

Writing, Mean, Emotional

Nelson Algren (1999). “The Man with the Golden Arm”, p.415, Seven Stories Press