Authorship Quotes · Page 3

if have got my spindle and my distaff ready--my pen and mind--never doubting for an instant that God will send me flax.

— J. G. Holland

Let it (what you have written) be kept back until the ninth year. [Lat., Nonumque prematur in annum.]

— Horace

Excessive speed and quantity are, like chattiness and digression, besetting sins of cyber-assisted authorship.

— P. J. O'Rourke

The familiar writer is apt to be his own satirist. Out of his own mouth is he judged.

— Edwin Percy Whipple

I think, for me, when I direct my own work it's just an extension of the authorship.

— Adam Rapp

He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who writes verses builds it in granite.

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

“Writing - the act of one person giving a piece of their soul to another.”

— Anonymous

A man of moderate Understanding, thinks he writes divinely: A man of good Understanding, thinks he writes reasonably.

— Jean de la Bruyere

Authorship has never been with me a matter of choice. I have not done it for amusement, or for money, or for…

— Harriet Martineau

O thou who art able to write a book which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted…

— Thomas Carlyle

You must have control of the authorship of your own destiny. The pen that writes your life story must be held in…

— Irene C. Kassorla

Whatever hath been written shall remain, Nor be erased nor written o'er again; The unwritten only still belongs to thee: Take heed,…

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I have observed that vulgar readers almost always lose their veneration for the writings of the genius with whom they have had…

— Egerton Brydges

It was among the ruins of the capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised…

— Edward Gibbon

Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer…

— Samuel Johnson

If you're fortunate enough with your history, like with Men in the Cities, your work becomes so absorbed in culture that the…

— Robert Longo

A third...candidate for Shakespearean authorship was Christopher Marlowe. He was the right age (just two months older than Shakespeare), had the requisite…

— Bill Bryson

What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should…

— Alain de Botton

All these teachers and [screenwriting] books mean you see movies that have been worked over by more committees wielding more rules, that…

— Paul Schrader

The wonderful fortune of some writers deludes and leads to misery a great number of young people. It cannot be too often…

— Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

Is it not singular how some men continue to obtain the reputation of popular authorship without adding a word to the literature…

— Anthony Trollope

First of all, I appropriate photographs.In presenting the Richard Prince photograph I tried to be as neutral as I could be. I…

— Sam Abell

Nature I believe in. True art aims to, represent men and women, not as my little self would have them, but as…

— Ouida

The terms of copyright last far too long: either the life of the author plus 70 years after death for a personal…

— Marvin Ammori

Peaceable times are the best to live in, though not so proper to furnish materials for a writer.

— Joseph Addison

Subtract from many modern poets all that may be found in Shakespeare, and trash will remain.

— Charles Caleb Colton

To write well is to think well, to feel well, and to render well; it is to possess at once intellect, soul,…

— Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

“The calling of an author is more than just to entertain, but also to share ones experiences with the world.”

— M.J. Stoddard

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

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

— William Cowper

“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

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

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Philip James Bailey

“You have to regain control of the authorship of your life and realize that no one else is going to write the…

— Nate Green

Writings survive the years; it is by writings that you know Agamemnon, and those who fought for or against him. [Lat., Scripta…

— Ovid