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Writer Quotes by Mark Twain

81 Writer quotes by Mark Twain

All Writer quotes Mark Twain’s page

Mark Twain jokes that books can be fun time‑passers but often lack real‑world use. He says a library is a sturdy monument that keeps stories alive, and that reading gives an edge over anyone who can’t read. He also notes that fiction must follow what could happen, while truth can be stranger than any story.

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Choosing not to read is like closing an open door to paradise

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People are much more willing to lend you books than bookcases.

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“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

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A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.

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'Classic'- A book in which people praise but do not read.

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Don't explain your author, read him right and he explains himself.

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Books are the liberated spirits of men.

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A "classic" is a book that everybody praises but nobody has read

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Those who say truth is stranger than fiction have wasted their time on poorly written fiction.

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The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.

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Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.

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If ever you've been down in the dumps, hear these iconic authors share with you more than their writing wisdom.

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When you catch an adjective, kill it - perhaps the best possible advice for budding writers.

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Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it…

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I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.

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I'm the only person who has ever found the right way to build an autobiography.

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Truth is more of a stranger than fiction. When in doubt, tell the truth. If you tell the truth, you don't have…

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Whatever you have lived, you can write & by hard work & a genuine apprenticeship, you can learn to write well; but…

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Well, my book is written-let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things…

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You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only…

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When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get…

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Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take the pen and put them out on paper to keep them…

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I don't believe any of you have ever read Paradise Lost, and you don't want to. That's something that you just want…

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“Tom found himself writing "BECKY" in the sand with his big toe; he scratched it out, and was angry with himself for…

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The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. It is said that leaders…

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Written things are not for speech; their form is literary; they are stiff, inflexible, and will not lend themselves to happy and…

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I will now claim - until dispossesed - that I was the first person in the world to apply the typewriter to…

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A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a…

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A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thing book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster…

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There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It…

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Another editor. That thing behind his ear is his pencil. Whenever he finds a bright thing in your manuscript he strikes it…

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If you invent two or three people and turn them loose in your manuscript, something is bound to happen to them --…

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“People who do not read have no advantage over those who can not read.”

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Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.

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Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

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A classic is a book which people praise and don't read.

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When I want to read something nice, I sit down and write it myself.

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Those who do not read have no advantage over those who cannot read.

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'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.

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“If You don't read good books, then you are no better than an unlettered Man”

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More by Mark Twain

Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.

If you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could…

“The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before…

It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.

“It is never wrong to do the right thing.”

A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually…

There is nothing training can't cannot do. Nothing is above its reach.

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get…

The higher animals get their teeth without pain or inconvenience. Man gets his through months and months of cruel torture; he will never get…

“As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred years, has turned all her energies, all her finances, and all her industry to…

Begin with the determination to succeed and the work is half done already.

Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either…

If we could imagine such a man, that is a man who could invent the fly and send him out on his mission and…

You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly…

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.