Quote

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

Writing can't be taught.

People say you can't teach writing, but I think that's nonsense.

Writing requires a great deal of skill, just like painting does. People don't want to learn those skills.

I've always felt that writing can be learned but not really taught. The best thing somebody can do for you is to put the right book in your hands at the right time. I grew up in a family where the right book was always being put in my hands.

I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see writing and reading as completely related. One almost couldn't exist without the other.

I think writing is an extension of a childhood habit - the habit of entertaining oneself by taking interesting bits of reality and building upon them.

Writing, for me, is an inherent part of understanding the material on a deeper level.

My feeling is that writing is, for me, a pathological condition. That could sound like a mystical experience, and it may be a mystical experience, but I have learnt just to go with it.

Writing is communication, and you don't know how you're doing until you put it in front of someone else's eyes. You also learn from critiquing other writers' work.