Writer Quotes · Page 609

Reading is like permitting a man to talk a long time, and refusing you the right to answer.

— Anonymous

Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.

— Khaled Hosseini

I always grew up with the idea that in order to be a successful writer, I should have a book published.

— Leandra Medine

If there is a perfect book to start the year with it has to be Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch.

— The Edge

'Classic'- A book in which people praise but do not read.

— Mark Twain

Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel.

— Donna Tartt

“When you read a book, you hold another's mind in your hands.”

— James Burke

“You'll never be able to silence the woman who was born to write.”

— Melody Lee

My idea of what's good and bad and right and wrong is maybe greyer than most, and I like writing about that.

— Shaun Cassidy

It's hard to describe the work of the British-born Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley without somewhat misrepresenting it.

— Stephen McCauley

The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's…

— William Golding

I'm never without my personalised Anya Hindmarch diary - I keep my schedule online, too, but my diary is always in my…

— Aerin Lauder

Books can capture injustices in a way that stays with you and makes you want to do something about them. That's why…

— Malala Yousafzai

I remember reading The Bluest Eye when I was a young parent, and something opened in me. That's the highest aspiration.

— George Saunders

The public takes from a writer, or a writing, what it needs and lets the remainder go. but what they take is…

— Charles Bukowski

“Solitude, competitiveness and grief are the unavoidable lot of a writer only when there is no organization or network to which he…

— Toni Morrison

I walked into the local library and asked the librarian do you've any books on the meaning of life? And she said…

— Jeremy Limn

Now writing is just working your way toward the border that the innermost secret draws around itself, and to cross that line…

— Christa Wolf

“I had been working hard at my book; it was one of those rare days of authorship when everything seemed to go…

— Gavin Maxwell

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an…

— George R.R. Martin

I think I'm succinct to the point of trying to write the two-word novel. Editing my work almost never means taking anything…

— Kate DiCamillo

Certainly, I had a wonderful push from my publisher and got very lucky. I'm very aware of what it means to have…

— Leigh Bardugo

“Some books had shiny pages that showed paintings of landscapes unlike anything Matty had ever seen, or of people costumed in odd…

— Lois Lowry

I am not a performing seal. In your writing, you are tapping into the part that is 'the best' in you. But…

— Twinkle Khanna

To be honest, I've never had an easy relationship with being a writer, though I persist.

— Peter Gizzi

“If you can't see the joy and wonder to be found in genre fiction, that's your problem, not mine.”

— William Meikle

I never write with constraints, which I don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing.

— David Cage

Writing is hard work; it's also the best job I've ever had.

— Raymond E. Feist

“My book shelf is never empty because an empty one would steal my imagination.”

— Laurie Bowler

Never believe anything you think about yourself as a writer when you're not writing.

— David Milch

Authors always take rejection badly. They equate it with infanticide.

— P. D. James

What I write comes from a place of deep love, and a deep understanding of all kinds of otherness.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I don't write because there's an audience. I write because there is literature.

— Susan Sontag

“We trust to novels to train us in the practice of great indignations and great generositie.”

— Henry James

“Don Quixote is not an imaginary person; he is as real as Alexander the Great.”

— Dejan Stojanovic

Editors always want to know what you're working on, what you're thinking about.

— Mary Downing Hahn

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.

— B C Forbes

I write to find out what I am thinking. I write to find out who I am. I write to understand things.

— Julia Alvarez

“If my clone writes my biography, is it really an autobiography?”

— Jarod Kintz

You have to be a speedy reader because there’s so so much to read.

— Dr. Seuss