Writer Quotes · Page 586

Writing is supposed to be difficult, agonizing, a dreadful exercise, a terrible occupation.

— Ray Bradbury

I think writers can gain a lot of vitality from being misread.

— Matthew Specktor

A writer's job is to destroy and then to build the thing back up again by a chosen means.

— Barry Hannah

“Writing for enjoyment of expression does not need an audience of more than one.”

— Edith Schaeffer

People can write you off, but life is about what you make it.

— Geno Smith

The best parts of any story to me are the unexpected things.

— Kirsten Vangsness

There's a certain possessiveness of writers sometimes.

— William Devane

Books are the basis; purity is the force; preaching is the essence; utility is the principle.

— A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

It's essential to have sacred time for writing. All successful authors have some daily commitment to keep on-track and moving forward.

— Dani Shapiro

Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in…

— Zadie Smith

I write to figure out how I feel, to move through my emotions, and to commemorate and honor seasons of my life.

— Olivia Rodrigo

I find in my own writing that only fiction - and rarely, a poem - fully tests me to the kind of…

— John Updike

Writing a tribe is fun. They have their own language, their own slang; they repeat it, and it becomes part of the…

— Laura Wade

Books are boring," James said as he wrote. "They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds…

— Laura Whitcomb

If we declare ourselves, as readers, to be on the side of life, the question has to be asked what sort of…

— Howard Jacobson

“A worry journal by your bedside can act as a mental depository of your anxieties, and once you write them down, you…

— Suhas G. Kshirsagar

“If you’re looking for other authors who’ll grab your attention and keep it, I’m happy to recommend the following: Blake Crouch’s Wayward…

— Andrew Peterson

What's funny about the slacker thing, people project an image of what they think a musician is: young, slack, unemployed - like…

— Courtney Barnett

“The book covers are a crucial part of my work - personally speaking. Particularly because, I cannot write a single word of…

— Abhijit Naskar

I'm always loath to make generalizations about what is for children and what isn't. Certainly children's literature as a genre has some…

— Daniel Handler

I don't write as much now as I used to, but I write. The lines still come, maybe periodically, and I'll go…

— John Trudell

almost all American writers tend to overwrite, to tell too much. I get the disillusioned feeling that novels, today, are sold by…

— Rona Jaffe

“The digital book has no front or back covers; there is no place to assert ownership, and there is nothing to own.…

— Alex Beam

I always think, OK, this is good, but I'll do it better next time. "And so we beat on, boats against the…

— Debra Dean

“As you can see, when I write, I like to look like I’m recovering from tuberculosis.”

— Mindy Kaling

Anyone who goes into writing has to find out somewhere along the line, he's either naive or insane.

— Leon Uris

Every story teaches me how to write it. Unfortunately, it doesn't teach me how to write the next one.

— Eudora Welty

“Writer's block doesn't exist...lack of imagination does.”

— Cyrese Covelli

You can't be a writer if you don't write, it's just that simple.

— Nicholas Sparks

“Very few authors, especially the unpublished, can resist an invitation to read aloud.”

— Truman Capote

I can work as a writer, but I wanted to do stand-up.

— Hannibal Buress

There's a whole language out there, and one's role as a writer is to stumble around in it.

— Ciaran Carson

There's a moral force in a sentence when it comes out right. It speaks the writer's will to live.

— Don DeLillo

The more I want a book to be done, the faster I type because I just want to get it out.

— John Scalzi

The true writer has nothing to say. What counts is the way he says it.

— Anonymous

“One must become a book before one can know what is inside it.”

— Don DeLillo

“Novels should reflect reality to some extent, otherwise they risk being sentimental.”

— Marc Levy

“Your don't have to burn books to destroy culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

— Ray Bradbury

Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.

— Kathryn Stockett

It is an interesting process to revisit a previously essayed role and hit new notes and dimensions.

— Arjun Mathur