James M. Cain Writing Quotations

You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel.

A lot of novelists start late-Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative writing courses! The academics don't know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter.

If your writing doesn`t keep you up at night, it won`t keep anyone else up either".

I write of the wish that comes true--for some reason, a terrifying thought.

If you can't write like New York, you have no business living in New York and making New York the locale of your stories.

When it’s too good, you do it over again. Too good is too easy. If it’s too easy you have to worry. If you’re not lying awake at night worrying about it, the reader isn’t going to, either. I always know that when I get a good night’s sleep, the next day I’m not going to get any work done. Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It’s not all inspirational.

Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational.