Writer Quotes · Page 31

“A writer flirts with schizophrenia, nurtures synesthesia, and embraces obsessive-compulsive disorder. Your art feeds on you, your soul, and, yes, to a…

— David Mitchell

When I read 'Absalom, Absalom!,' I remember being really excited about it and telling all my friends they had to read it,…

— Jesmyn Ward

I grew up loving books and stories. Reading became my favourite pastime, and you have to be a reader before you can…

— Sandra Brown

When you are a sentence-based writer, they have to be good. They have to be really on the spot. Because when you…

— Per Petterson

Borders are liminal spaces. Anyone worthy of the title of 'writer' is a border writer. We all are border people.

— Luis Alberto Urrea

If you're a writer, the insight of other writers - if there's some kind of Holy Grail message on how to deal…

— Jim Rash

“Let your story grow. Let it surprise you, and it will certainly surprise your readers.”

— M. Kirin

I'm more of an organic writer.

— Skip Marley

I'm always looking for a sign - not in a spooky, supernatural way, but in a 'neurotic writer' kind of way.

— Erik Larson

I always just wanted to be a writer, not necessarily a particular kind of writer.

— Jill Lepore

Life being so short, and the possible books to write so many, it's good to function by night as well as by…

— Hilary Mantel

I want to photograph what I see and put it in a dramatic context. I'm an actor and a writer, and I…

— Tommy Lee Jones

I was very pleased, obviously, to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I do realise that I am a…

— Maeve Binchy

One of the big breakthroughs I had as a writer was when I stopped agonising over every word.

— Alastair Reynolds

I think that fanaticism is terrific. As long as you don't have to live with it. Oh, yes, nobody should marry a…

— Cynthia Ozick

“I write because I love it, not because I excel at it.  But because I write, I shall slowly excel at it.”

— Richelle E. Goodrich

“An aspiring writer should write one time and edit ten times.”

— Amit Kalantri

For a writer, for the solitude to write, you don't need a room of your own, you need a house.

— Sandra Cisneros

I'm not a fast writer at all. I come empty and wait upon the Lord. So it really is all a waiting…

— Ann Voskamp

If I were a writer, the Pulitzer Prize would be important to me. This is my profession, so an Oscar is important.

— Martin Landau

For everyone I know who is a writer, there was some awkward time in their lives when they had to learn to…

— James Bernard Frost

I hate to badmouth any book or writer, because I know how it feels to be on the other end of that.

— Karin Slaughter

My mother was a schoolteacher and very, very encouraging. She understood what it meant when I said I wanted to be a…

— Derek Walcott

I particular enjoy the crime writer, Walter Ellis Mosley. He does a series of Chandler-esque detective stories.

— Lennie James

“Inspire before you expire.”

— M.L. Shanahan