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How to Write
First published in 1931, this book contains Gertrude Stein’s thoughts about the craft of writing. It is written in her usual experimental style, yet it is not difficult to understand, and even traditionalists will find that it has many things to say to them.
Her experimental style includes such elements as disconnectedness, a love of refrain and rhyme, a search for rhythm and balance, a dislike of punctuation (especially the comma), a dismissal of the conventional significance of words, and a repetition of words and phrases. Her approach to writing is impossible to summarize, but many critics see a strain of American humor in her work, borne out immediately by some of the chapter “Saving the Sentence,” “Arthur a Grammar,” “Regular Regularly in Narrative,” and “Finally George a Vocabulary.”
Readers who have not encountered Gertrude Stein or who have had difficulty with her other work will find this book useful as an entry into her writing. It is also in itself a unique, exhilarating experience.
Her experimental style includes such elements as disconnectedness, a love of refrain and rhyme, a search for rhythm and balance, a dislike of punctuation (especially the comma), a dismissal of the conventional significance of words, and a repetition of words and phrases. Her approach to writing is impossible to summarize, but many critics see a strain of American humor in her work, borne out immediately by some of the chapter “Saving the Sentence,” “Arthur a Grammar,” “Regular Regularly in Narrative,” and “Finally George a Vocabulary.”
Readers who have not encountered Gertrude Stein or who have had difficulty with her other work will find this book useful as an entry into her writing. It is also in itself a unique, exhilarating experience.
418 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1931
105 people are currently reading
2021 people want to read
About the author
Gertrude Stein
408 books1,190 followersGertrude Stein was an American writer who spent most of her life in France, and who became a catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. Her life was marked by two primary relationships, the first with her brother Leo Stein, from 1874-1914, and the second with Alice B. Toklas, from 1907 until Stein's death in 1946. Stein shared her salon at 27 rue de Fleurus, Paris, first with Leo and then with Alice. Throughout her lifetime, Stein cultivated significant tertiary relationships with well-known members of the avant garde artistic and literary world of her time.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
October 27, 2010
As though Stein could not possibly outline how it is that one writes, she instead gives us seemingly infinite combinations of words to demonstrate just how it is that one might write, or how it is that she might write, if writing were more, perhaps, like painting or like taking a long walk down streets that are well-appointed in either crowds or scenery. You won't find any descriptions here--of anything, in particular or in general--but you will find, if you can suspend any craving you might have for linear narrative, a book that is itself indescribably rich in possibilities. Stein arranges the "chapters" of this book so as to make a certain improbable sense, and within those chapters language itself is arranged carefully and with an attempt to evoke full consciousness of what the very structures of writing imply. But not without humor: reading this book without laughing is probably impossible, although it may not be easy to say what is funny about it. It simply is, the way that language is: surprising and delightful.
Want to read
May 31, 2024F Scott Fitzgerald said in a letter to Stein, "I read the book, of course, immediately, and was half through it for the second time (learning a lot as we all do from you) when my plans were upset by my wife's illness."
August 27, 2014
Many people who like this book still don't know how.
January 13, 2008
A mixed bag, a tough row to hoe, all that jazz. Does contain everyone's favorite Steinism: "A sentence is not emotional a paragraph is."
January 10, 2009
'The Picasso of Words'
I just love this book, with all its masterful whimsy, it's hilarity piled toplingly high. It counteracts all that is wrong with the world, it's willfulness supercedes every other.
Her basic idea, that a word can be assigned a meaning of its own by the writer, independent of how everyone else views that word, delights and intimidates me. I mean, I know you can't *really* write that way in the real world, it would be madness. But sometimes you can *stretch* a word beyond its normal usage, and I do that (probably more than I should) for the exhilaration of it all.
Very luscious!
I just love this book, with all its masterful whimsy, it's hilarity piled toplingly high. It counteracts all that is wrong with the world, it's willfulness supercedes every other.
Her basic idea, that a word can be assigned a meaning of its own by the writer, independent of how everyone else views that word, delights and intimidates me. I mean, I know you can't *really* write that way in the real world, it would be madness. But sometimes you can *stretch* a word beyond its normal usage, and I do that (probably more than I should) for the exhilaration of it all.
Very luscious!
October 21, 2007
I don't know what to say about this book. It's truly a masterpiece though. A masterpiece of what, though, is the big question. It's a really fun book to read out loud at a party. It's a great book if you like words but don't care much for their meanings or usage. I dunno, I really have no idea what to say about this book except that I love it dearly. Some day I will actually read the whole thing.
May 17, 2015
I found it to be a very intriguing experience to read this book.
It was like meditation: words, passages, pages all washing past - alive for a fleeting moment and then lost again to time.
It was like meditation: words, passages, pages all washing past - alive for a fleeting moment and then lost again to time.
October 12, 2007
Sheer linguistical horseplay. Fun, fun, fun stuff.
August 22, 2013
Getch'yer mind blown, right here, courtesy of Gertrude.
March 11, 2017
"How to Write" won't teach you how to write but how to think about words, and like Stein said writing isn't about words but imagining. So, why read this book? It will teach you how to write.
November 20, 2025
DNF
[10%]
Sorry Gertrude.
- 📚☕♥
Goodreads Official Star Representation
5 - It was amazing
4 - I really liked it
3 - I liked it
2 - It was okay
1 - Did not like it.
[10%]
Sorry Gertrude.
- 📚☕♥
Goodreads Official Star Representation
5 - It was amazing
4 - I really liked it
3 - I liked it
2 - It was okay
1 - Did not like it.
October 30, 2007
Reading how to write is an incredibly peaceful experience. Thanks Gertrude!
June 28, 2016
How to Write - Gertrude Stein
Geography and Plays I wasn't ready to rate, but with How to Write I've grown accustomed.
No doubt Stein is a genius, a genius without a filter. She doesn't choose. She doesn't need to choose but everything can stay, every impulsive sentence is welcome. She could surely cut one tenth of it. But then she would probably have written only one book, and that would be boring.
Working through How to Write was like learning to read all over again - it was annoying and hard work. But worth it. And I learned a lot apart from reading. Maybe I will start adding some nonsense to my own life, and be proud of it. I might even stop apologising. Maybe I'm completely inspired now, so inspired I don't even know where to begin! Or maybe it's just a book. Who knows? Happy read!
Some quotes of my preference, very random:
intro:
"It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing really doing nothing. If a bird or birds fly into the room is it good luck or bad luck we will say it is good luck. (EA 70)."
"I can be accepted more than I was but I can be refused almost as often. After all if nobody refuses what you offer there must be something the matter, I do not quite know why this is so but it is so. It was not so in the nineteenth century but it is so in the twentieth century. And that is because talking and writing have got more and more separated. Talking is not thinking or feeling any more, it used to be but it is not now but writing is, and so writing naturally needs more refusing. (EA 46)"
"Nobody chooses. What you do you do even if you do not yield to a temptation. After all a temptation is not very tempting. So anyway you will earn nothing. (WIEL, LIA 54)"
".. certainly I said I do want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich. (EA 128)"
"It takes so much effort sometimes just to begin (creative work) and although going on is mostly a pleasure it is also a great effort. And no one cares whether or not you do it. No one asks you to do it and mostly no one wants it when you have done it and although as a creative artist you accept that it mostly has to be like that, nevertheless it is hard."
"All this just about covers everything. The only thing left for a creative artist to do in his life is to do his chosen work in spite of everything and regardless of anything because when living draws to an end there are no excuses he can make to himself or to anyone else for not having done it. Either he did it or he did not do it and very often he did not. Alas very often he did not."
"A Sentence is not emotional a paragraph is. (HTW 23)"
Book:
"Better than all for the best."
"A plain case of separation. Will she separate well from him. Well from him is what he thought."
"A thing that is discouraging is to come along."
"It is easy to hide a hope."
"A Sentence is not emotional a paragraph is."
"The great question is can you think a sentence."
"Successions of words are so agreeable. It is about this."
".. how do you do do love me."
"Refuse resistance."
"A grammar relates to not liking to see again those you used to know."
"The question is if you have a vocabulary have you any need of grammar except for explanation that is the question, communication and direction repetition and intuition that is the question. Returned for grammar."
"When this you see you are all to me."
"I will agree to no map with which you may be dissatisfied and therefore beg you to point out what you regard as incorrect in the positions of the troops in my two sketches."
"A little boy is afraid in general if he is to be a general he is not to be dangerous and so he would be in command in general of a general."
"Amassed in a ride without mentioning whether it was a train or otherwise." (great sentence!)
"No omen that it is not a man.. "
"How many times can they be indifferent to a distant sound."
"Not having had it and lost it."
"Grammar makes it alone it makes it be happy alone and she said it was useful."
"The great difficulty is to tell by a hoarse voice if the voice is hoarse because of the city or because of the country."
"What is grammar. Grammar is the sky rosy from lack of sun."
"If you think of grammar as a part. Can one reduce grammar to one."
"What is a verb a verb is went and sent and in in elegant."
"What is a sentence. A sentence is an imagined master piece. A sentence is an imagined frontispiece."
"While they are alike they resemble those who know what they like."
"their chairs for sitting are not more comfortable than their standing for standing."
"Leave a sentence alone when they end."
"It is very nice to look at it and not be disappointed."
"The pleasure she gives me is that she gives me."
"The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product."
"Nobody knows the difference between a girl and a boy. How can you tell a girl you can tell a girl by a girl how can you tell a girl by a girl how can you tell a girl by a girl."
"Do not care about them about that about theirs about this about it."
".. a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose."
"This makes having never and now never known very well that married married well well as much as ever if easily upset if easily upset. Follow what is said what is it and when if angry and when if angry never to fear if when if angry never to fear if when never to fear if angry never to fear never to fear never to fear if angry if when if angry."
"Did he live to believe that it is not well enough done."
"After all an abandonment."
"Would one be satisfied with the answer if there was every certainty that the answer would be given."
"suddenly as it were within a part of the time."
"If they found him in the snow would they be sorry and would they try once he was well to remember that there never is any snow there.."
"And how do they like to be left to themselves. It is always what they do when they might be worth having it liberally as much as they could see it in the most and very nicely thought out way.."
"they do not betray themselves in the habitual resolve to be cherished"
"It might be the most and very much a great difficulty to see that five are more than four when three of them are dead two not responsible for being living and one perhaps refusing in addition."
"It should never be an exact copy."
"a disappointment makes it a promise of certainly the next time making it twenty five percent better.."
"Come one come all this rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as I."
"it is very difficult to have crossed an ocean without an ocean of preparation."
"it is better to be right than to be perfect and perfectly it is better to be perfectly right"
"It was noon to-day and there was hesitation in her walk."
"Compel cake."
"It is better not to do too much if you are bewildered."
"How can it be made to have no identity with having half."
"It is very curious that they have all of the addresses so far apart where they live with their parents."
"she had no children of her own and when she inherited she inherited nothing in comparison with what she had."
"No noise makes tranquility a burden"
Geography and Plays I wasn't ready to rate, but with How to Write I've grown accustomed.
No doubt Stein is a genius, a genius without a filter. She doesn't choose. She doesn't need to choose but everything can stay, every impulsive sentence is welcome. She could surely cut one tenth of it. But then she would probably have written only one book, and that would be boring.
Working through How to Write was like learning to read all over again - it was annoying and hard work. But worth it. And I learned a lot apart from reading. Maybe I will start adding some nonsense to my own life, and be proud of it. I might even stop apologising. Maybe I'm completely inspired now, so inspired I don't even know where to begin! Or maybe it's just a book. Who knows? Happy read!
Some quotes of my preference, very random:
intro:
"It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing really doing nothing. If a bird or birds fly into the room is it good luck or bad luck we will say it is good luck. (EA 70)."
"I can be accepted more than I was but I can be refused almost as often. After all if nobody refuses what you offer there must be something the matter, I do not quite know why this is so but it is so. It was not so in the nineteenth century but it is so in the twentieth century. And that is because talking and writing have got more and more separated. Talking is not thinking or feeling any more, it used to be but it is not now but writing is, and so writing naturally needs more refusing. (EA 46)"
"Nobody chooses. What you do you do even if you do not yield to a temptation. After all a temptation is not very tempting. So anyway you will earn nothing. (WIEL, LIA 54)"
".. certainly I said I do want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich. (EA 128)"
"It takes so much effort sometimes just to begin (creative work) and although going on is mostly a pleasure it is also a great effort. And no one cares whether or not you do it. No one asks you to do it and mostly no one wants it when you have done it and although as a creative artist you accept that it mostly has to be like that, nevertheless it is hard."
"All this just about covers everything. The only thing left for a creative artist to do in his life is to do his chosen work in spite of everything and regardless of anything because when living draws to an end there are no excuses he can make to himself or to anyone else for not having done it. Either he did it or he did not do it and very often he did not. Alas very often he did not."
"A Sentence is not emotional a paragraph is. (HTW 23)"
Book:
"Better than all for the best."
"A plain case of separation. Will she separate well from him. Well from him is what he thought."
"A thing that is discouraging is to come along."
"It is easy to hide a hope."
"A Sentence is not emotional a paragraph is."
"The great question is can you think a sentence."
"Successions of words are so agreeable. It is about this."
".. how do you do do love me."
"Refuse resistance."
"A grammar relates to not liking to see again those you used to know."
"The question is if you have a vocabulary have you any need of grammar except for explanation that is the question, communication and direction repetition and intuition that is the question. Returned for grammar."
"When this you see you are all to me."
"I will agree to no map with which you may be dissatisfied and therefore beg you to point out what you regard as incorrect in the positions of the troops in my two sketches."
"A little boy is afraid in general if he is to be a general he is not to be dangerous and so he would be in command in general of a general."
"Amassed in a ride without mentioning whether it was a train or otherwise." (great sentence!)
"No omen that it is not a man.. "
"How many times can they be indifferent to a distant sound."
"Not having had it and lost it."
"Grammar makes it alone it makes it be happy alone and she said it was useful."
"The great difficulty is to tell by a hoarse voice if the voice is hoarse because of the city or because of the country."
"What is grammar. Grammar is the sky rosy from lack of sun."
"If you think of grammar as a part. Can one reduce grammar to one."
"What is a verb a verb is went and sent and in in elegant."
"What is a sentence. A sentence is an imagined master piece. A sentence is an imagined frontispiece."
"While they are alike they resemble those who know what they like."
"their chairs for sitting are not more comfortable than their standing for standing."
"Leave a sentence alone when they end."
"It is very nice to look at it and not be disappointed."
"The pleasure she gives me is that she gives me."
"The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product."
"Nobody knows the difference between a girl and a boy. How can you tell a girl you can tell a girl by a girl how can you tell a girl by a girl how can you tell a girl by a girl."
"Do not care about them about that about theirs about this about it."
".. a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose."
"This makes having never and now never known very well that married married well well as much as ever if easily upset if easily upset. Follow what is said what is it and when if angry and when if angry never to fear if when if angry never to fear if when never to fear if angry never to fear never to fear never to fear if angry if when if angry."
"Did he live to believe that it is not well enough done."
"After all an abandonment."
"Would one be satisfied with the answer if there was every certainty that the answer would be given."
"suddenly as it were within a part of the time."
"If they found him in the snow would they be sorry and would they try once he was well to remember that there never is any snow there.."
"And how do they like to be left to themselves. It is always what they do when they might be worth having it liberally as much as they could see it in the most and very nicely thought out way.."
"they do not betray themselves in the habitual resolve to be cherished"
"It might be the most and very much a great difficulty to see that five are more than four when three of them are dead two not responsible for being living and one perhaps refusing in addition."
"It should never be an exact copy."
"a disappointment makes it a promise of certainly the next time making it twenty five percent better.."
"Come one come all this rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as I."
"it is very difficult to have crossed an ocean without an ocean of preparation."
"it is better to be right than to be perfect and perfectly it is better to be perfectly right"
"It was noon to-day and there was hesitation in her walk."
"Compel cake."
"It is better not to do too much if you are bewildered."
"How can it be made to have no identity with having half."
"It is very curious that they have all of the addresses so far apart where they live with their parents."
"she had no children of her own and when she inherited she inherited nothing in comparison with what she had."
"No noise makes tranquility a burden"
January 5, 2026
Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
I find it hard to recommend this, but I love it.
If Lolita is a love letter to the English language, then How to Write is a tawdry affair with it. It disregards rights and wrongs, living in the destructibility of the moment. If you can read without needing to frontal lobe this thing, letting it percolate in the dark cul-de-sacs of your mind, do it.
Be a moth to the flame, burning yourself as your love pulls you into joyous ruin.
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
I find it hard to recommend this, but I love it.
If Lolita is a love letter to the English language, then How to Write is a tawdry affair with it. It disregards rights and wrongs, living in the destructibility of the moment. If you can read without needing to frontal lobe this thing, letting it percolate in the dark cul-de-sacs of your mind, do it.
Be a moth to the flame, burning yourself as your love pulls you into joyous ruin.
February 10, 2020
Virtually unreadable, managed to get to the end by skipping most of it, through vertical reading. The sound of the words was pleasant but that wasn't enough to make it in any way useful or pleasant. Can't understand how some people rated it 5 stars and defined if funny in any way
July 4, 2022
Oh god, I've been reading this book for over two years and I'm on chapter three. I find it so difficult to let go of my expectations of language that reading 'How to Write' is like exposure therapy. I can manage two or three pages before steam comes out of my ears. It's good for me, I'm convinced.
July 18, 2025
A historical curiosity of a certain era. That does not make it readable. It’s worth flipping through and reading a few excerpts. But I think anyone who reads the whole thing must have a lot of time to waste.
August 22, 2017
My notes after reading this book - She is Loony Tunes. The flow and sound of words when read aloud (which is important but for some reason, that's all I got out of this book).
Read
June 9, 2019I didn't understand the point of this book.
January 24, 2021
Can’t finish it won’t finish it seems like gibberish
September 13, 2021
Too experimental for me. It would be fun in tide it's but a whole book reading straight through is annoying
July 20, 2022
🌟🌟🌟 | 3 - 5
Aşırı şiirsel anlatımı olan bir kitaptı.
Aşırı şiirsel anlatımı olan bir kitaptı.
March 12, 2023
Way, way too long for an interesting, fun experiment
December 8, 2025
it's not what you think it is. Unless, you know Gertrude Stein's work, if which case, then it's exactly what you think it is.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews