I wanted to be a writer all my life. Since I was 10. And then at a certain point I began to… — Tim Winton Copy Share Image
“There are other letters, from the heirs of fictional magnates, from the widows of oil barons, from the legal representatives of incarcerated… — Teju Cole Copy Share Image
If you would like to write better than everybody else, you have to want to write better than everybody else. You must… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
“Green goo bubbles in a cauldron in the center of all this chaos. On a pedestal in front of it, a book… — Rita Webb Copy Share Image
The fact is that writing, like any creative undertaking, carries with it both pain and great joy. The pain is often inherent… — Judith Barrington Copy Share Image
It used to be with chocolate. I would put chocolate in my studio and say, "You know, Nat, there's this chocolate you… — Natalie Goldberg Copy Share Image
In truth, my Anglophilia is fundamentally bookish: I yearn for one of those country house libraries, lined on three walls with mahogany… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
If you feel . . . that well-read people are less likely to be evil, and a world full of people sitting… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
“And you’re not the standard insecure nymph hunting for Faulkner you’ll never finish, never start; Faulkner that will harden and calcify, if… — Caroline Kepnes Copy Share Image
I suppose that there are endeavors in which self-confidence is even more important than it is in writing -- tightrope walking comes… — Calvin Trillin Copy Share Image
As he approached his 28th birthday in February 1840, Dickens knew himself to be famous, successful and tired. He needed a rest,… — Claire Tomalin Copy Share Image
“There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people,… — Lemony Snicket Copy Share Image
To read Lucia St. Clair Robson is to learn while being thoroughly entertained. Last Train from Cuernavaca puts us through the tragic… — James Alexander Thom Copy Share Image
For any writer, the ability to look at a sentence and see what's superfluous, what can be altered, revised, expanded, and, especially,… — Francine Prose Copy Share Image
As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
... the subjective viewpoint is the only one to use regarding a library. Your true library is a collection of the books… — Carolyn Wells Copy Share Image
Born Losers is a beautiful piece of writing. Scott Sandage is history's Dickens; his bleak house, the late nineteenth century world of… — William S. McFeely Copy Share Image
'A Fair Maiden' existed in notes and sketches for perhaps a year. When I traveled, I would take along with me my… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
The Hawley Book of the Dead had me completely spellbound from beginning to end. A storytelling virtuosa, Chrysler Szarlan has woven a… — Anne Fortier Copy Share Image
To be a serious writer requires discipline that is iron fisted. It's sitting down and doing it whether you think you have… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“How the excitement comes upon me to tell it all! In the quest of writing, the heart can speed up with anticipation--as… — Sena Jeter Naslund Copy Share Image
Zeus Is Dead is full of laugh-out-loud moments, lashings of sly wit, moan-worthy puns, and a complex, fast-paced storyline. There aren't very… — Jody Lynn Nye Copy Share Image
“I have come to see this fear, this sense of my own imperilment by my creations, as not only an inevitable, necessary… — Michael Chabon Copy Share Image
I take up my own pen again - the pen of all my old unforgettable efforts and sacred struggles. To myself -… — Henry James Copy Share Image
The idea of an e-book has been around since the late 1970s, when researchers at Xerox PARC got on the case. Their… — Charles Platt Copy Share Image
She never managed to find herself in these books no matter how hard she tried, exhuming traits from between the pages and… — Eleanor Brown Copy Share Image
One of the things that I love about writing novels is that it really doesn't matter what next step you take as… — Jonathan Safran Foer Copy Share Image
Once upon a time, there was a boy who learned to read at the age of 5. This changed his life. Owing… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Your life is like a book. The title page is your name, the preface your introductions to the world. The pages are… — Grenville Kleiser Copy Share Image
One goes on writing partly because it is the only available way of earning a living. It is a hard way and… — Anthony Burgess Copy Share Image
Every work [of literature] has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the… — Vivian Gornick Copy Share Image
Very few writers understand the complex history and maddening social order of the Mississippi Delta. For Steve Yarbrough, though, it's home turf.… — John Grisham Copy Share Image
The formula for creative writing in high school or college is write what you know. And I said they don't know nothing.… — Toni Morrison Copy Share Image
When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of… — George Orwell Copy Share Image
It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation… — Don DeLillo Copy Share Image
People might ask me, What do you propose instead? I propose nothing. I am a mere novelist, I just write about the… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
This is a gift that God has given me. I'm not smart enough to write for everybody, but it's the love in… — Jan Karon Copy Share Image
We don't want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities of being have… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
A lot of readers ask me, "Do you ever get emotional while writing the book?" or "Did you cry when you killed… — Victoria Aveyard Copy Share Image
![“Every work [of literature] has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say” quote by Vivian Gornick](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/38a/vivian-gornick-8241_books_every-work-of-literature-has-both-a-situ_1566826.jpg)
