Writer Quotes · Page 319

Reading is a possession, a march toward a possession.

— Italo Calvino

“Books are written so their authors can be heard, not so that they remain silent.”

— Elena Ferrante

A lot of young writers wait for inspiration. The inspiration only hits you at the desk.

— Robert Anderson

I was never a quick writer, but composed with great care and efforts.

— Joseph Haydn

“Good fiction is life with all the boring bits taken out, not with all the hardship taken out.”

— Caro Clarke

A novel is a printed circuit through which flows the force of a reader's own life.

— E. L. Doctorow

As a writer, putting words on the page is how I pay attention.

— Jonathan Safran Foer

“They believed all books should be read, for as long as the reader liked.”

— Alice Hoffman

To live among such excellent helps as our libraries afford, to have so many silent wise companions whenever we please.

— Richard Baxter

But the fact is, I'm not work-identified. I'm not a lawyer or a writer. I'm a mom, and I'm a woman, and…

— Lisa Scottoline

“Nonfiction. I didn’t choose it as much as it chose me. It squatted and birthed me one raw winter day then jerked…

— Chila Woychik

“Sometimes writers like to imagine that the difficulty of becoming a writer resides in convincing others that that is what you are.…

— Hanif Kureishi

There are writers who can express in as little as twenty pages what I occasionally need as many as two for.

— Karl Kraus

It's all just fictions anyway. We do what we do and then we make up reasons for it afterward but they're never…

— Orson Scott Card

I love books with titles like, 'How Do You Spank a Porcupine?,' 'Arnie, the Darling Starling,' or 'The Bat in My Pocket.'

— Luis Alberto Urrea

I think novelists perform many useful tasks for their fellow citizens, but one of the most valuable is this: to enable us…

— Doris Lessing

“We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are…

— Gabrielle Zevin

I feel when a writer treats a character as 'precious,' the writer runs the risk of turning them into a comic book…

— Raymond E. Feist

“A dear and long-time friend,... asked me, "Jack, how long does it usually take you to write a book?" I replied, "Of…

— Jacob Neusner

The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are…

— Robertson Davies

“She laughed. "Oh God no. I've maybe read a third of 'em. But I'm going to read them all. I call it…

— John Green

When I say that I can write nothing but weird fiction, I am not trying to exalt that medium but am merely…

— H. P. Lovecraft

We live in a culture that venerates scores. We affix numbers to how much fat is in our mochachinos, how quickly our…

— Anthony Doerr

The ambivalence of writing is such that it can be considered both an act and an interpretive process that follows after an…

— Paul de Man

I'm always nice when I do drugs. But, you know, I'm nicer on the drug called "writing."

— George Saunders

I try to write in a way that makes people feel things.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

For what use are books to anyone whose days are like a rook's nest with every twig a duty.

— Mervyn Peake

“I could always give you a teaser. You bookish people love teasers, don't you?”

— Jennifer L. Armentrout

Me and Norman Mailer have talked about how hard it is in America to get better. Especially at writing.

— Ken Kesey

A wild and crazy weekend involves sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigar, reading a book.

— Robert M. Gates

Writing is a hard business...but nothing makes you feel better.

— Ernest Hemingway

I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.

— John Lennon

I've got re-addicted to normal people, which is the loveliest thing to write about.

— Ricky Gervais

To provoke dreams of terror in the slumber of prosperity has become the moral duty of literature.

— Ernst Fischer

Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a book.

— Charles Kingsley

A book is made better by good readers and clearer by good opponents.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.

— Francoise Sagan

“Books are like eggs. Somethings you have to crack them open to get anything out.”

— Clifton L. Taulbert

I turn to books for a feeling of companionship: for somebody knowing what I have known.

— Lois Lowry

“Writing is a gift. To be good at your gift you need to keep writing.”

— Lisa Powell