Lillian Hellman Writing Quotations

Nowadays people write English as if a rat were caught in the typewriter and they were trying to hit the keys which wouldn't disturb it.

I've always had great satisfaction out of writing the plays. I've not always had great satisfaction out of seeing them produced-although often I've had satisfaction there. When things go well in production, on opening there's no nicer feeling in the world-what could be nicer than watching an audience respond? You can't that from a book. It's a fine feeling to walk into the theater and see living people respond to something you've done.

Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.

The writer's intention hasn't anything to do with what he achieves. The intent to earn money or the intent to be famous or the intent to be great doesn't matter in the end. Just what comes out.

Like all former thinkers, I'm writing a book.

Nothing you write, if you hope to be good, will ever come out as you first hoped.

If you believe, as the Greeks did, that man is at the mercy of the gods, then you write tragedy. The end is inevitable from the beginning. But if you believe that man can solve his own problems and is at nobody's mercy, then you will probably write melodrama.

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.