Writer Quotes · Page 395

There is very little difference between one who cannot read and one who will not read.

— Jim Rohn

“This first book’s for everyone, though almost no one wants it or would know how to read it.”

— China Miéville

A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.

— Irwin Shaw

I know it's a cliché to say I write for myself, but I write for myself.

— John Darnielle

A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play;

— Charlotte Bronte

Book burnings. Always the forerunners. Heralds of the stake, the ovens, the mass graves.

— Geraldine Brooks

George Orwell is a pinnacle writer, for his combination of moral insight and literary writing.

— Atul Gawande

“A good reader should always have two books with him: one to read, the other one to lend.”

— Gabrielle Dubois

From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as something artful, waiting, just waiting and…

— Toni Morrison

Individual writers can certainly make a difference, but they are working within a system, an institution, that still holds tremendous power over…

— Marjorie Liu

I've become a day writer: most people start as night writers, and I used to be, but something happened to my endocrine…

— Douglas Coupland

I have a hard time with people who say they write for children but they don't really like children. I love children.…

— Jason Reynolds

“Good fiction is trawling back into the past and digging up the real characters who've influenced your entire being.”

— Ken Scott

The best book on programming for the layman is 'Alice in Wonderland'; but that's because it's the best book on anything for…

— Alan Perlis

A non-event ... is better to write about than an event, because with a non-event you can make up the meaning yourself,…

— Margaret Atwood

My belief of book writing is much the same as my belief as to shoemaking. The man who will work the hardest…

— Anthony Trollope

“Let us define our terms. A woman who writes her lover four letters a day is not a graphomaniac, she is simply…

— Milan Kundera

“It's not that I liked lunacy for the sake of lunacy, but if a writer can truly surprise me without throwing logic…

— Will Schwalbe

I should think it extremely improbable that anyone ever wrote for money. Naturally, when he has written something, he wants to get…

— P. G. Wodehouse

My father told us all the time: to become a good writer takes writing. Because the more you do it, the better…

— Thomas Steinbeck

I think that when people read fiction, they're really reading for wisdom. I am. That's what most of us really love. If…

— Barbara Kingsolver

In a New York Post interview, Judy Blume, author of young-adult fiction, gave this advice on getting your kids to read: "Moms…

— Judy Blume

Because I have no consistent schedule as an actor, it was difficult to develop one as a writer. Ideally, I'd like to…

— Lauren Graham

[Eugene] O'Neill made a living, certainly, at least. But each of these forms have sort of died the death in turn, and…

— William Monahan

Our clients' faces, with the customary outward paleness and inner glow of the book lover.

— Diane Setterfield

When you compose, it's like writing. You're like a writer. You just think all the time.

— Alexandre Desplat

If I were really fluent and born into the English language, I would probably become a greater writer.

— Chath Piersath

The greatest gift anyone can give to a writer is time.

— Edwidge Danticat

“I'm so passionate about my writing, there's page-spunk pouring out of my fingertips.”

— Mike Philbin

The making of fiction takes literally what is suggested by our imagination.

— Alice Mattison

One must be rich in thought and character to owe nothing to books.

— Amos Bronson Alcott

I write from my life, my experience. I'm selfish that way.

— Pink

“Ignatius B. Samson, welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.”

— Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I want to be a part of the stories that need to be told.

— Lucy Fry

In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature the oldest.

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

I learned to read at two. I was in a Montessori school and they teach you to read really, really young.

— Dakota Fanning

I am almost six-novels-old. It took me until the third novel to call myself a writer.

— Manju Kapur

The only real advice you can give anyone is to keep writing.

— David Sedaris

Your intention for a book is never the same as the reception.

— Neil Strauss

I write for what's left of the eight-year-old still rattling around inside my head

— Chris Van Allsburg