A bookstore has thousands of titles to sell. You need to be the guy the store attendant recommends to the reader. — Ravi Subramanian Copy Share Image
We are all potentially characters in a novel--with the difference that characters in a novel really get to live their lives to… — Georges Simenon Copy Share Image
I seem to find different material every four to six months and I frequently forget it which is a shame because it… — Leo Kottke Copy Share Image
When I write about working-class people, I do so in ways that reveal them at their absolute, magnificent worst. — Steven Berkoff Copy Share Image
“The writer who possesses the creative gift of fantasy owns something of which he is not always master; something that, at times,… — Charlotte Bronte Copy Share Image
“You don't have to get into writing – it's not like a pair of jeans... The only way to write is to… — Jeanette Winterson Copy Share Image
Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation… — Michel Houellebecq Copy Share Image
We are the children of a technological age. We have found streamlined ways of doing much of our routine work. Printing is… — Lawrence Clark Powell Copy Share Image
“I am more interested in human beings than in writing, more interested in lovemaking than in writing, more interested in living than… — Anaïs Nin Copy Share Image
There are a lot of experimental novels that test the boundaries of what the novel is, and 'Conversations' is not one of… — Sally Rooney Copy Share Image
I never liked my father. He really was a dullard and misanthrope. My mother and he were married for 22, years and… — Edmund White Copy Share Image
All fiction, if it's successful, is going to appeal to the emotions. Emotion is really what fiction is all about. That's not… — George R. R. Martin Copy Share Image
“Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, or making friends. It's about doing what you love the best you know how. It's… — Billie Sue Mosiman Copy Share Image
“A writer must develop a representative voice. A writing voice is reflective of the sum total of his or her cognitive, physical,… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
I'm sure I've been influenced by every fine writer I've ever read, from Dickens and Austen to Auden and Jane Hirshfield. And… — Amy Bloom Copy Share Image
“What I really want is to be recognized as a writer; that someday, my poetry — this is an interesting paradox —… — Harley King Copy Share Image
I set myself 600 words a day as a minimum output, regardless of the weather, my state of mind or if I'm… — Arthur Hailey Copy Share Image
An aging writer has the not insignificant satisfaction of a shelf of books behind him that, as they wait for their ideal… — John Updike Copy Share Image
What writing ROOM taught me was that I know exactly how to be the perfect mother, but I'm not willing to do… — Emma Donoghue Copy Share Image
ONE BLOOD is a richly detailed, intricately woven tale rendered in lush, evocative prose. This memorable debut heralds Qwantu Amaru as a… — Brandon Massey Copy Share Image
Faith is a talent, and it goes the way of all your talents. Getting old is the subtraction of your powers. Which… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Start early and work hard. A writer's apprenticeship usually involves writing a million words (which are then discarded) before he's almost ready… — David Eddings Copy Share Image
I gave up writing children's books. I wanted to escape from them as I had once wanted to escape from 'Punch': as… — A. A. Milne Copy Share Image
The library should be a commonplace to every one. To use it should be as natural when one needs news or knowledge,… — John Cotton Dana Copy Share Image
I was writing an earnest novel about cruises in the Caribbean and I just started writing 'Bridget Jones' to get some money,… — Helen Fielding Copy Share Image
Fine writers should split hairs together, and sit side by side, like friendly apes, to pick the fleas from each others fur. — Logan Pearsall Smith Copy Share Image
Most books, after all, are ephemeral; their specifics, several years later, inspire about as much interest as daily battle reports from the… — Stephen Jay Gould Copy Share Image
“I keep going;I keep writing because I know something good will happen, and I want to see it when it happens.” — Millicent Ashby Copy Share Image
People say, 'You're like Dickens', but I'm not like Dickens. Zadie Smith is a Dickensian writer because she's writing about society now,… — Sarah Waters Copy Share Image
I write for myself. I don't write because I have a record coming out. I write because I want to. I need… — Hunter Hayes Copy Share Image
If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account. — V. S. Naipaul Copy Share Image
Writing is not "the establishment of a professional reputation" as if one were a doctor or lawyer; it is not properly in… — Elizabeth Hardwick Copy Share Image
I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between… — Jonathan Coe Copy Share Image
I am a writer who has a policy to allocate 90 percent of my time for research and the remaining 10 percent to write. — Andrea Hirata Copy Share Image
There's just something "off" about equating the act of spending three years writing a book with the act of someone exploiting themselves… — Marie Calloway Copy Share Image
Make notes—I’ve lost more material than I’ve ever written. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not still up there in one’s brain. It’s… — Judith Guest Copy Share Image
I go through periods of not writing. Until there's something I can't find in the world that I need, so I write. — Daphne Gottlieb Copy Share Image
One of my passions is that children enjoy their time at school - and reading for pleasure can be an important part… — Charles Clarke Copy Share Image
Of course, authors can still burn their manuscripts - but once something is out in the world, especially if it ever saw… — Maria Konnikova Copy Share Image
“Nor would I willingly miss the early darkness and the pleasant firelight tea and the long evenings among my books.” — Elizabeth von Arnim Copy Share Image
