Writer Quotes · Page 495

Don't dumb down; always write for your top five percent of readers.

— Martin Amis

I've matured as a writer and human being. I've got some wisdom under my belt.

— Carlene Carter

The difference between me and you is that I do good fiction.

— Tom Clancy

A book is the only real escape from this fallen world. Aside from death.

— Anonymous

Writing, overall, has never been what I'd call fun. It's fulfilling. It doesn't come real easy for me.

— Iris Dement

I always feel very afraid as I work on books. It's just so hard to write a decent book!

— Jennifer Egan

I was just delighted to be a legitimate, for-real published author.

— Paul Harding

“You can “pants” your way through your novel, but you can’t “pants” your way to success.”

— Bob Mayer

The library is not only a diary of the human race, but marks an act of faith in the continuity of humanity.

— Vartan Gregorian

I love it, I hate it, it's ecstasy when I'm writing well, it's despair when I'm not. I wouldn't wish this life…

— Jillian Medoff

Fiction is love and hate and agreement and conflict and common adventure, not lonely musings on have-beens and might-have-beens.

— Anonymous

You know, my first three or four drafts, you can see, are on legal pads in long hand. And then I go…

— Robert Caro

The walls were lined with books, many of them in foreign languages, like insulation against the immediate present.

— Ross Macdonald

UNMARKED is both gorgeous and hideous. A frightening and disturbing tale spun with great beauty. Absolutely riveting.

— Jonathan Maberry

“When I meet someone who says they're not "much for books," I can guarantee that they haven't met the right book yet.”

— Kersten Hamilton

I chose to publish the first 'Shopaholic' book under a pseudonym because I wanted it to be judged on its own merits.

— Sophie Kinsella

“You're not going to write the greatest novel ever written. Nor will I. Nor will anyone. Why? Because the greatest novel ever…

— Sarah M. Cradit

The digital revolution has wrest a little control away from corporate publishers and white, male, middle-aged critics, but the financial value put…

— Sara Sheridan

Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading. Stop them reading what they enjoy or give them worthy-but-dull books that…

— Neil Gaiman

To read and to write. Some writers have to be told to write. They think their job is to meet agents and…

— Ursula K. Le Guin

“In one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature. Good literature may tell us…

— G.K. Chesterton

We all live on so many different levels and understandably present just a small portion of ourselves in most of our everyday…

— Elizabeth Strout

I think writing kind of burns out the flaming question. Sometimes it might feel like when you're living with certain paradoxes and…

— Maggie Nelson

It is truly excellent to have someone believe in you and your ability to write. But I think it is just as…

— Kate DiCamillo

I was never really a writer, I was always more of a performer.

— Mick Ronson

Sparky's the only guy I know who's written more books than he's read.

— Ernie Harwell

Writers who do great work must be coddled and encouraged.

— Ben Domenech

“I’ll probably just read a book. I’ve got like a million of them in my to-be-read pile.”

— Rebekah L. Purdy

“Overall, books and art were a safer escape from reality than sleep.”

— Lisa Cach

Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.

— George Sand

Some books you read. Some books you enjoy. But some books just swallow you up, heart and soul.

— Joanne Harris

I'm not trying to write for the masses. I don't care.

— Cass McCombs

Writing and telling are almost the same, the way I do it.

— Daniel Pinkwater

Writing is about confidence and wondering what the point of anything is.

— Nick Hornby

I have spent more time with other people's books than with my own. I do not regret it.

— Italo Calvino

Reading is a mighty engine, beside which steam and electricity sink into insignificance.

— Melvil Dewey

Reading is like the sex act - done privately, and often in bed

— Daniel J. Boorstin

I'm quite fond of the writer who told a beginning author, "If you've got a message, use Western Union."

— Arthur C. Clarke

William Trevor is an author I admire; his stories are subtle and powerful, and beautifully written.

— Kim Edwards

So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.

— Clarice Lispector