Authorship Quotes · Page 2

And hold up to the sun my little taper.

— Lord Byron

“Try to be someone upon whom nothing is lost!”

— Henry James

Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

— John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby

“When I write, my soul sings.”

— Melissa Marsh

People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men.

— Samuel Johnson

Of all unfortunate men one of the unhappiest is a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism.

— Benjamin Disraeli

The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“When writing feels like jumping a cliff, grab the nearest pen!”

— Susan J. McIntire

“To lead and live the life of your dream, you must arise and be in-charge of the authorship of your own destiny.”

— Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Strength is not energy; some authors have more muscles than talent.

— Joseph Joubert

Successful writers learn at last what they should learn at first,--to be intelligently simple.

— Josh Billings

“The out-dated imagery of sitting over a dusty typewriter staring at blank pages for years is a fallacy and probably designed to…

— Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

To write much, and to write rapidly, are empty boasts. The world desires to know what you have done, and not how…

— George Henry Lewes

But, inevitably, as he [Kierkegaard] approaches what we might call his Christocentric climax many readers drop off. Many scholars just leave that…

— George Pattison

“The essential ingredient of authorship is authority. You hunt it out in a library, you chase it down the street, or you…

— Barbara Kingsolver

Too indolent to bear the toil of writing; I mean of writing well; I say nothing about quantity. [Lat., Piger scribendi ferre…

— Horace

Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point.

— Douglas William Jerrold

“Our lives are like books; we are merely characters in each other's stories. While we can impact each other's plotlines, respecting the…

— Erick "The Black Sheep" G

In my first 15 or 20 years of authorship, I was almost never asked to give a speech or an interview. The…

— John Updike

“Self-doubt is every writer’s nemesis. While healthy in moderation, unchecked self-doubt can lead to procrastination, crippling perfectionism, and ultimately failure. If you’re…

— Will Raywood

We may observe in humorous authors that the faults they chiefly ridicule have often a likeness in themselves. Cervantes had much of…

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

For popular purposes, at least, the aim of literary artists should be similar to that of Rubens in his landscapes, of which,…

— William Benton Clulow

How many great ones may remember'd be, Which in their days most famously did flourish, Of whom no word we hear, nor…

— Edmund Spenser

Insofar as I think about postmodernism at all, and it doesn't exactly keep me awake at nights, I think of it as…

— Jonathan Raban

“The name Maldoror, suggesting as it does evil, gold, horror, dawn, sadness etc., seems a curious hybrid, but on reading the work…

— Alexis Lykiard

The only times we are consciously aware of the authorship of a photograph, I would argue, are when we contemplate the photographs…

— William Boyd

There are three difficulties in authorship;-to write any thing worth the publishing-to find honest men to publish it -and to get sensible…

— Charles Caleb Colton

“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

“He showed, in a few words, that it is not sufficient to throw together a few incidents that are to be met…

— Voltaire

“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

“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

Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear Glean after what it can.

— Philip James Bailey

The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession.

— George Sand

Knowledge is the foundation and source of good writing. [Lat., Scibendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.]

— Horace

“Publishing a book does not make you an authority or an expert. Authorship doesn’t not equal authority.”

— Loren Weisman

“Somebody told me I'm a writer. I believed them. Now I regret it.”

— Stefanos Livos

Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

— William Cowper

Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To expect an author to talk as he writes is ridiculous; or even if he did you would find fault with him…

— William Hazlitt