Writer Quotes · Page 560

All of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person.

— Jean Rhys

I didn't know I was gonna be a writer when I started out.

— Seymour Hersh

To my ear, the term 'comic novelist' is as redundant and off-putting as the term 'literary novelist'.

— Howard Jacobson

I'm not clever enough to write. It's as basic and tragic as that.

— Caroline Quentin

If the government ever imposes a tax on books - and I wouldn't put it past them - I'm in dead trouble.

— Terry Pratchett

It's not an accident that successful people read more books.

— Seth Godin

As a person I'm often overwhelmed by emotions, so I write them down.

— Arlo Parks

“emotion, and that negative moments are like scribbling with permanent marker”

— Jodi Picoult

General writing about science, even if we do it badly, helps us to see our work in perspective and broadens our vision.

— Martin Rees

But when I was a little kid, I was always writing stories and illustrating little books that I would create.

— Patricia Cornwell

Fiction that adds up, that suggests a "logical consistency," or an explanation of some kind, is surely second-rate fiction; for the truth…

— Joyce Carol Oates

No male writer is likely to be asked to sit on a panel addressing itself to the special problems of a male…

— Margaret Atwood

It is a happy day when I am asked to publicly recommend a book. It is also a dilemma. When I consider…

— Elizabeth Berg

I have written some of the clumsiest, most clogged-yet-vagrant, hobbledehoyish, hitch-slipping sentences ever conceived by the human mind.

— Roy Blount, Jr

If I really knew how to do good storytelling, I would be a writer. Mystery is not a huge part of it.…

— Scott Cohen

“I write for myself first and foremost, but I hope that others will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing…

— Shannon DuBey

For so long, the model for writing has been, you sit in a room alone for a number of days or weeks…

— Robin Sloan

Despite recent speculation in the media, and after difficult but sincere consideration, I have decided not to direct 'Catching Fire.' As a…

— Gary Ross

“It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which,…

— Henry David Thoreau

When you write, you're always revealing a difficult part of yourself. It may not be a part of yourself that looks as…

— Joan Didion

The best thing anyone can do is be himself. Everyone was made different by God, and that's the way it should be.…

— Ernie Harwell

Very few people can write in a crowd. This is a very solitary occupation. I have known people more talented than me…

— Tom Robbins

“The categories that a reader brings to a reading, and the categories in which that reading itself is placed - the learned…

— Alberto Manguel

“This book is a treasure; I did not suspect it would be so good when I picked it up, but now I…

— Laura Nowlin

Avid readers are enchanted by meaning, which is available chiefly in books.

— Mason Cooley

Literature is the denunciation of the times in which one lives.

— Camilo Jose Cela

The way I personally work is I like to write what I know, what I feel, and also where I am.

— David E. Kelley

I'm not a writer who thinks about writing only for themselves; I do always have a reader in mind.

— Emma Healey

When one wants to write, one writes. If one is condemned to write, one writes.

— Julio Cortazar

“There's a word for an author who doesn't give up... published.”

— Anonymous

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

— Ernest Hemingway

A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read.

— Mark Twain

I want to be a storyteller - not only of the Latin experience but of people who want to be inspired.

— Nicholas Gonzalez

I think if you feel like you were born to write, then you probably were.

— Lena Dunham

“Because at night when others are sleeping, I drown myself in poetry.”

— Kamand Kojouri

I'm almost back to being able to write as much as six hours a day .

— Justine Larbalestier

I have a call to speak, to write, to do sort of deep-heart surgery in people's lives.

— John Eldredge

“You cannot be a great writer in a shop where words are sold in tens and twenties.”

— Rick Aster

“Libraries always remind me that there are good things in this world.”

— Lauren Ward

Librarians are like crack dealers when it comes to hooking small children.

— Spider Robinson