Writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.

About Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut ( VON-ə-gət; November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works over fifty years; further works have been published since his death.

More quotations from Kurt Vonnegut

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.

—Kurt Vonnegut

maturity age comfort

I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

—Kurt Vonnegut

happiness nice pleasant

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

—Kurt Vonnegut

entertainment change death television

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before… He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

—Kurt Vonnegut

ignorance learning knowledge work effort resentment

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

—Kurt Vonnegut

criticism triviality

More quotations tagged with “writing”

He asked, "What makes a man a writer?" "Well," I said, "it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge.

—Charles Bukowski

writing necessity suicide

The good thing about writing fiction is that you can get back at people. I've gotten back at lawyers, prosecutors, judges, law professors, and politicians. I just line 'em up and shoot 'em.

—John Grisham

writing fiction politicians lawyers

Writing is so difficult that I often feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.

—Jessamyn West

writing escape art punishment

I lived in the midst of an affectionate, charming family, and I am sure that there is no greater obstacle to a person who is just beginning to write.

—Katharine Butler Hathaway

writing family affection

I have spent a good many years… being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.

—Stephen King

talent writing poetry fiction shame

History

23 Nov 2014 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

Writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.