Writer Quotes · Page 269

There is no doubt that it is more difficult to read and more difficult to write but I still manage.

— Colleen McCullough

“The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.”

— D.H. Lawrence

I never went to a writing school, so 'The Wire' was my writing school.

— George Pelecanos

As a writer, I first felt successful before I was published.

— Patrick Rothfuss

Everything in my life affects my writing. There are no separate parts of my life.

— Patricia Reilly Giff

Writing is hard work. But if you want to become a writer you will become one. Nothing will stop you.

— Dorothy Day

“Isn’t that why all writers write? To inspire their readers?”

— Adam Langer

You work hard on a book and throw it out there and then it's beyond your control.

— Sara Gruen

I want prose fiction to be recognized as that, and I'm not interested in writing as it becomes more personal.

— Anonymous

“Can't live without writing. Can't write without reading. Can't read without dreaming. Can't dream without living.”

— Ksenia Anske

If you want to write for yourself, get a diary. If you want to write for your friends, get a blog. If…

— James Patterson

I don't really know the person who wrote the things I wrote. I kind of know him, but I change so much…

— Jonathan Ames

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a…

— Margaret Atwood

Literature is the human activity that make the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty.

— Lionel Trilling

With my writing, because I live it, I have to be consumed by it, and that means you have to forget your…

— Paullina Simons

Books have always been to me like a kind of embalmed mind. The dead may be scattered, and who can find them,…

— Laurel Lea

There have been days where I've had two writers' rooms or three writers' rooms going, and you walk back and forth. And…

— Noah Hawley

it is not unusual to hate great writers before we learn to love them. Because they have created something that did not…

— Erica Jong

“I refused to have bookshelves, horrified that I'd feel compelled to organise the books in some regimented system - Dewey or alphabetical…

— Rebecca Makkai

Here's the first major lesson: Writing is not an activity. It's not something you sit down at the keyboard, and just start…

— Jeff Bollow

I've been in so many writing workshops where someone hands in a story, and when the other writers in the workshop are…

— Jesmyn Ward

I usually have more than one thing I'm working on at once -- I've been working on three different novels. When I…

— Dan Chaon

I do not write by any set time schedule. I realize there are many writers who follow a daily regime where they…

— Donald McKay

It takes me about a week and a half to read the typical book. I don't know how many ten-day spans I…

— Ken Kalfus

“If you write something that you love beyond all reason, it is wrong and you should strike it out.”

— William Faulkner

I'm always jotting things down on pieces of paper. I've got pieces of paper all over my house.

— Don Henley

When I write, I operate as a writer and a reader both - I never know what's going to happen.

— Elizabeth Berg

There's no such thing as writer's block. I'm brilliant all the time every day. It never stops.

— Dave Finkel

Literature has the power to change lives, minds, and hearts.

— Anonymous

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Reading is the only area of my life in which I prefer to be non-autonomous.

— Sophie Hannah

“Everyone knows that books are better than life! That's why they're books!”

— Shainee Gabel

“I don’t know why I have to write down my fucking thoughts. What if I don’t have any thoughts?”

— Wade Kelly

Whatever (its) virtues, (the) writing explores the culture of work but marginalizes work itself.

— Maureen Corrigan

I've been a writer since I was 16. I didn't get published until I was 24. I know that sounds crazy.

— Markus Zusak

Cooking, decorating, diet/self-help and gardening books are guilty pleasures and useful time fillers.

— Hillary Clinton

I'm not very happy idle. There's always this voice in my head that says, 'I should be writing.

— Harlan Coben

“I had books. Reading them is like travelling to other places. Being other people. Living other lives.”

— Liz Braswell

The only time I'm pleased with myself is when I'm exhausted and shaking from having written too much.

— Mabel Seeley

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.

— Franz Kafka