If you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're… — Ursula K. Le Guin Copy Share Image
“Readers of a certain class are apt to call good the plot of that story in which "you can't tell what is… — Arnold Bennett Copy Share Image
I was incredibly determined - I wrote short stories, I wrote the beginnings of novels. I wrote a little children's book and… — Candace Bushnell Copy Share Image
Ninety-five percent of all writers who write do not get published, but 100 percent of all writers write because they have a… — Steve Berry Copy Share Image
I always have my journal with me. It was handmade by a guy at the San Telmo market in Buenos Aires. If… — Blake Mycoskie Copy Share Image
At a very early stage of the novel's development I get this urge to collect bits of straw and fluff, and to… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
He held the book up to his nose. It smelled like Old Spice talcum powder. Books that smelled that way were usually… — John Bellairs Copy Share Image
The books I love most are the ones that combine some sort of gripping story with really beautiful or stylish writing. Some… — Karen Thompson Walker Copy Share Image
There are some people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men… — H. L. Mencken Copy Share Image
I've seen novels that have grown out of one story in a collection. But it hasn't occurred to me to take any… — Jhumpa Lahiri Copy Share Image
Writing, for me, has to do with liberty of mind. The liberty to intuit, assess, be surprised, even to be ashamed and… — Laurie Sheck Copy Share Image
“Perhaps you are not sitting in this room, and I am not sitting by you. These are points in which a doubt… — Jane Austen Copy Share Image
Writing a book is a brilliant thing because once you've finished it, you've done it, and there's the potential for it to… — Tom Hodgkinson Copy Share Image
Before I sat down and became a writer, before I began to do it habitually and for my living, there was a… — David Rakoff Copy Share Image
Raven-haired writer Emer Martin is giving a lunchtime reading from her fabulous new novel, Baby Zero. Emer Martin is a brilliant writer,… — Olaf Tyaransen Copy Share Image
I can blend words easily with my pen, and show concepts from deep within. Yet not everyone gets the message I send.… — Stanley Victor Paskavich Copy Share Image
If you can propose a memoir, even if you are eighteen years old - and what do you remember? What are you… — Frederick Busch Copy Share Image
I believe in the magic of books. I believe that during certain periods in our lives we are drawn to particular books--whether… — Cecelia Ahern Copy Share Image
I wake up fairly early every day, by 8, for sure. Sunday is a lighter writing day than the weekdays, but I… — Karen Thompson Walker Copy Share Image
There are people that you don't like because you're jealous of them until you meet them. And you haven't read their book… — Peter Carey Copy Share Image
I'm afraid that the act of writing is so scary and anxiety-filled that I never laugh at all. In fact, when people… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
Everything you need for your better future and success has already been written.And guess What? It's all available.All you have to do… — Jim Rohn Copy Share Image
“Never will I make that extra effort to live according to reality which alone makes good writing possible: hence the manic-depressiveness of… — Cyril Connolly Copy Share Image
I always plan the whole story in some detail, long before I start writing the actual thing. But even doing that, I… — Raymond Buckland Copy Share Image
“…one of those long, romantic novels, six hundred and fifty pages of small print, translated from French or German or Hungarian or… — Jean Rhys Copy Share Image
“Whether the underlying cause of your dependency is a chemical imbalance, unresolved events from the past, beliefs you hold that are inconsistent… — Chris Prentiss Copy Share Image
“A writer must find his own grain, way, bent. ...He aspires to create new and original works. His way is alone. If… — F. Scott Fitzgerald Copy Share Image
There were always moments where I'd say, 'What else can I do with my life?' But when I was 30 years old… — Ricky Schroder Copy Share Image
Like a Chinese box, the world of the novel contained smaller worlds, and inside those were yet smaller worlds. Together, these worlds… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“The problem is that the inner critic is actually an indispensable element of any writer’s working life; it is the immune system,… — Patricia Costa Viglucci Copy Share Image
The truth is that every book we read, like every person we meet, has the capacity to change our lives. And though… — Susan Cooper Copy Share Image
Before I begin a novel I have a strong sense of at least one central character and how the story begins, and… — Steve Erickson Copy Share Image
Writing is not magic. It’s a craft, a process, a set of steps. As with any process, things sometimes break down. Even… — Roy Peter Clark Copy Share Image
“One of the questions I hear most often regarding my plan to read the OED from cover to cover is "Why don't… — Ammon Shea Copy Share Image
“Even today it’s not uncommon to find teachers who believe that if a child can’t take a pen in hand and write… — Sally A. Spencer Copy Share Image
There's a really nice moment in the life of a piece of writing where the writer starts to get a feeling of… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all. A… — Aleister Crowley Copy Share Image
“The 1920s was a great time for reading altogether—very possibly the peak decade for reading in American life. Soon it would be… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“Tucking my nose into a book makes me completely oblivious to my surroundings. I would have made a terrible spy in the… — Alyxandra Harvey Copy Share Image
