Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well. — John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby Copy Share Image
“He who writes to his beloved every day is not a lover, but a writer.” — Dr. Kyaciss Pfiell Copy Share Image
Authors who moan with praise for their editors always seem to reek slightly of the Stockholm syndrome. — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
A writer who attempts to live on the manufacture of his imagination is continually coquetting with starvation. — Edwin Percy Whipple Copy Share Image
“I have had my say, as he wished. Now the book belongs, as he points out, to the world he claims to… — Julian Darius Copy Share Image
Those authors who appear sometimes to forget they are writers, and remember they are men, will be our favorites. — Benjamin Disraeli Copy Share Image
“You shouldn't write about your personal life', says the one feeling threatened by the truth to the writer.” — Robin Sacredfire Copy Share Image
“Authorship is a mania to conquer which no reasons are sufficiently strong.” — Matthew Gregory Lewis Copy Share Image
There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect; compared with which reproach, hatred, and opposition are names of happiness; yet… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
My favorite figure of the American author is that of a man who breeds a favorite dog, which he throws into the… — Henry Adams Copy Share Image
The unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his… — John Dryden Copy Share Image
This letter gives me a tongue; and were I not allowed to write, I should be dumb. [Lat., Praebet mihi littera linguam:… — Ovid Copy Share Image
This is the magnanimity of authorship, when a writer having a topic presented to him, fruitful of beauties for common minds, waives… — Charles Lamb Copy Share Image
Yes, I learned long ago that the only satisfaction of authorship lies in finding the very few who understand what we mean.… — Ellen Glasgow Copy Share Image
Sallust is indisputably one of the best historians among the Romans, both for the purity of his language and the elegance of… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
If we enter into the kind of world that Google likes, the world that Google wants, it's a world where information is… — Jaron Lanier Copy Share Image
That an author's work is the mirror of his mind is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
In a sense, photographs are highly literary, and the photographer, like the writer, has to be both a master of craft and… — Peter C Bunnell Copy Share Image
“Creative work is often driven by pain. It may be that if you don't have something in the back of your head… — Cormac McCarthy Copy Share Image
Translation is a form of passive aggression. In doing it, a writer chooses to forgo original authorship so as to play havoc… — Lawrence Venuti Copy Share Image
Certain I am that every author who has written a book with earnest forethought and fondly cherished designs will bear testimony to… — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton Copy Share Image
Professed authors who overestimate their vocation are too full of themselves to be agreeable companions. The demands of their egotism are inveterate.… — Henry Theodore Tuckerman Copy Share Image
“A book can never be anything more than the impress of its author's thoughts; and the value of these will lie either… — Arthur Schopenhauer Copy Share Image
It is commonly the personal character of a writer which gives him his public significance. It is not imparted by his genius.… — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
“He showed, in a few words, that it is not sufficient to throw together a few incidents that are to be met… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
“One picks one's way about through the glass and aluminum doors, the receptionists' smiles, the lunches with too much alcohol, the openings… — Samuel R. Delany Copy Share Image
“It may take a decade or two before the extent of Shakespeare's collaboration passes from the graduate seminar to the undergraduate lecture,… — James Shapiro Copy Share Image
“I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book:… — Roman Payne Copy Share Image
“None of the things I have mentioned can make a foolish man wise or a bad book good. But when they are… — John Russell Copy Share Image
“Every article and review and book that I have ever published has constituted an appeal to the person or persons to whom… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
Of course, if one's reading Kierkegaard for personal interest that's fine - but it's sloppy scholarship just to cherry pick what suits… — George Pattison Copy Share Image
“The Author To Her Book Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth did'st by my side remain, Till snatcht… — Anne Bradstreet Copy Share Image
![“This letter gives me a tongue; and were I not allowed to write, I should be dumb. [Lat., Praebet mihi littera linguam: Et, si non liceat scribere, mutus ero.]” quote by Ovid](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/12f/ovid-276_authorship_this-letter-gives-me-a-tongue-and-were-i_1908332.png)
![“Creative work is often driven by pain. It may be that if you don't have something in the back of your head driving you nuts, you may not do anything. It's not a good arrangement. If I were God, I wouldn't have done it that way. [Interview, The Wall Street Journal , Nov. 20, 2009]” quote by Cormac McCarthy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6fc/cormac-mccarthy-181_authorship_creative-work-is-often-driven-by-pain-it_628097.jpg)
![“I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...two of them said that, after death, the [sic…” quote by Roman Payne](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9ee/roman-payne-1959_advice-for-writers_i-ran-across-an-excerpt-today-in-english_2690369.jpg)
