Writer Quotes · Page 249

“To think of the time I spend procuring books... How fitting: a book procured me. Utterly fantastic...”

— Erika Swyler

The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.

— Rex Stout

You always feel like a hack and a fraud when you're writing. It's just how it goes.

— Mary H.K. Choi

“the person who doesn't read is no better off than the person who can't read”

— Stephen R. Covey

Great children's books are wisdom dipped in words and art.

— Peter H. Reynolds

My dream was, and always had been, to write a book. To be a writer.

— Deb Caletti

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.

— Vladimir Nabokov

“A writer’s primary goal is to make sense. The bookstore’s is to make cents.”

— Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“When did you know you were going to be a writer? I knew it when I was young, I forgot it in…

— Bernhard Schlink

I was a writer first, and knew I'd be a storyteller at age seven. But since my parents are very practical, they…

— Tess Gerritsen

“Wherever I am, if I've got a book with me, I have a place I can go and be happy." [ Harry…

— J.K. Rowling

I go to book stores to see if they have any miss prints on sale. I hate to read but I love…

— Stanley Victor Paskavich

I suppose if I didn't write for a living and it couldn't be published, I would have wanted to write anyway. I…

— Decca Aitkenhead

I think no more than a week after I started writing I ran into the first block. It's hard to describe it…

— Tennessee Williams

The reason why borrowed books are seldom returned, is that it is easier to retain books themselves than what is inside of…

— Gilles Menage

“Books can look dangerous or precious, depending on which side you're looking from, from office or from the streets.”

— Abhijit Naskar

Writing a book is as difficult or as easy as any other job. Everyone's job is difficult. So to fetishize difficulties in…

— Neel Mukherjee

I like making things. I enjoy putting words and images on a blank space. There should be joy in the writing itself…

— Min Jin Lee

I can start with the idea of taking until you can take off, through the idea that all of my writing foregrounds…

— Douglas A. Martin

I start a book and I want to make it perfect, want it to turn every color, want it to be the…

— Joan Didion

“...A well-written, well-organized book packages the author's brain. It is the purest, richest, most complete way to take what's inside one person's…

— Kevin Maney

You don't want to dwell on your enemies, you know. I basically feel so superior to my critics for the simple reason…

— John Irving

“You have always wanted to be a writer. Getting the job at the magazine was only your first step toward literacy celebrity.…

— Jay McInerney

“We're slammed at work and busy at home. Throw in an occasional outing with friends or significant others, and we're ready for…

— Chris Baty

Better to lose a book to a child, than to lose a child to illiteracy.

— Richard Allington

Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary.

— Jessamyn West

I hold that the parentheses are by far the most important parts of a non-business letter.

— D. H. Lawrence

When I wrote and got out of the way, writing did writing.” (p.90)

— Natalie Goldberg

I write in the garden room, on my terrace at home in Covent Garden.

— David Essex

“I write for the same reason I eat chocolate - because it is, undeniably a compulsion.”

— Emma Shortt

“Some days being a writer consists of telling yourself you aren't insane, your characters are.”

— Nevea Lane

When I read, I'm either reading to learn, or I'm reading to switch off.

— Paolo Bacigalupi

He is a writer for the ages, the ages of four to eight.

— Dorothy Parker

Once you finish reading a book , you find out how different you are from other people.

— MlY AB

I don't write for the money. I write because something in me is constantly compelled.

— Beth Moore

I read serious books, but every now and then, I read just for fun.

— Mitt Romney

One of the best things that happened for me as a playwright is becoming a comic-book writer.

— Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

Read the most useful books, and that regularly and constantly.

— John Wesley

I just write the books that I think I would want to read.

— Curtis Sittenfeld

“I don't have to do this alone. If I had my gratitude journal on me now, that's what I would write.”

— Cynthia Hand