P. D. James Writing Quotations

Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.

There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment.

read widely, not in order to copy someone else's style, but to learn to appreciate and recognize good writing and to see how the best writers have achieved their result. Poor writing is, unfortunately, infectious and should be avoided.

I am fifty years old and I have never known what it is to love. I can write those words, know them to be true, but feel only the regret that a tone-deaf man must feel because he can't appreicate music, a regret less keen because it is for something never known, not for something lost.

Publishers don't nurse you; they buy and sell you.

Learn to write by doing it. Read widely and wisely. Increase your word power. Find your own individual voice though practicing constantly. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and learn to express that experience in words.

Don't just plan to write - write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.

Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell.

We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.