Writer Quotes · Page 525

I really want to write a novel. I also want to learn to play the mandolin.

— Emma Watson

“Sometimes hanging out in pajamas with a good book sounded like a phenomenal idea.”

— Chloe Neill

Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost.

— Thomas Fuller

In French literature, you can choose a la carte; in Spanish literature, there is only the set meal.

— Jose Bergamin

What's the use of being a writer if you can't irritate a great many people?

— Norman Mailer

My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages.

— Anne Tyler

I rewrite a lot until I get the rhythm and story right on the page.

— Jacqueline Woodson

“Writing is turning life's worst moments into money.”

— J.P. Donleavy

“Leases, writes, statutes, all are written to be read and each person reads them by the light of self-interest.”

— Hilary Mantel

“Imogen was a bright girl naturally, but she had read so many novels that her brain was completely turned.”

— Susan Coolidge

And now, without having wearied my friends, I hope, with detailed scientific accounts, theories, or deductions, I will only say that I…

— Joshua Slocum

They do most by Books, who could do much without them, and he that chiefly owes himself unto himself, is the substantial…

— Thomas Browne

There's no reason you shouldn't, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly.

— John Irving

Writing has made me a better man. It has put me in contact with those fleeting moments which prove the existence.

— Ishmael Reed

“My lips are fierce with passion. My heart spins fiery beats. A rhythm lives within my fingers and dances in my feet.”

— Jamie Weise

Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego.

— John Cheever

Woodworking requires a completely different kind of thinking and problem-solving ability than writing. With writing, you take a set of facts and…

— Joshua Foer

Writing helps me to create order out of chaos and make sense of things. It helps me to understand what I've experienced,…

— Miriam Toews

I sometimes have the sense that I live my life as a writer with my nose pressed against the wide, shiny plate…

— Jan Clausen

Teachers and librarians are some of my favorite people, especially since I was a teacher myself. I love talking to them because…

— Rick Riordan

In TheColorful Apocalypse, Greg Bottoms explores the frontier between inspiration and psychosis with the expressive power, the passionate fervor, and the faithfully…

— Madison Smartt Bell

My theory is that Kurt had a lot of residual pain from his childhood. And when you pile that on top of…

— Charles J. Shields

First-book novelists and storywriters haven't yet failed and so it's easier to publish them - you can gamble on a success. Whereas…

— Frederick Busch

“And yet, for a writer of fiction, part of the heart remains that of a stranger, for what we are trying to…

— Margaret Laurence

I liked to read but, being a dancer, I didn't have a lot of time to read.

— Suzanne Farrell

Artists are expected to talk about their work but writers aren't expected to talk about their writing.

— Peter Schjeldahl

Directly or indirectly, everything we write is for someone.

— Anonymous

I don't believe in inspiration. I write when I can't avoid writing anymore.

— Aleksandar Hemon

“Fiction can be more real to the reader than reality itself because fiction is the essence of life”

— James N. Frey

The reason I write is that I'm not in dialogue with my emotions; writing puts me in touch with myself.

— Etgar Keret

Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.

— Edmund Burke

The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.

— Stephen King

“I wanted to write about the complexity and hilarity in the everyday business of being human.”

— Kate De Goldi

“Reading is a sojourn that takes you round the world without having to move your feet.”

— Sravani Saha Nakhro

I hate to lend a book I love…it never seems quite the same when it comes back to me…

— Anonymous

Writing novels is a way of living alternative lives.

— Melvyn Bragg

“When I write, I feel like an armless leg less man with a crayon in his mouth.”

— Vonnegut

I have a very solo career. I only write with people that I really adore.

— Jenny Eclair

“Librarians know books, we live books, we breathe books, we are books.”

— Jenny Levine

I hope I'm not just looked as a writer that is popular but as a writer of literary value.

— Sandra Cisneros