Writer Quotes · Page 274

“Writing is harmless, and it keeps me in dinners and out of trouble.”

— Paul Bowles

Some things get written more quickly than others, but I can't really measure degrees of difficulty.

— Paul Auster

Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.

— Dean Koontz

“Do what you will, this life's a fiction, And it is made up of contradiction.”

— William Blake

“Because all books ARE the Book of Job -- man in the crucible like Jack in the Box…”

— Stanley Elkin

I have spent a reasonable percentage of my life in libraries - I like the hush.

— Robin Ince

I really want to write, and it's the only thing I'm good at.

— Christopher Markus

Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.

— Natalie Goldberg

If you're going to read a Peretti book, you're going to get a message. But the book is a pretty good read.

— Frank Peretti

Irish readers, British readers, American readers: is it odd that I haven't a clue about how differently they react? Or better say,…

— Seamus Heaney

“If you don't love what you're writing, stop right now: it's not worth your time and certainly not the reader's.”

— Don Roff

I'm widest awake as a writer doing something new, engaged in a process I'm not sure I can finish, generating at the…

— Barbara Kingsolver

I am a better writer for having fewer demons, and I am more curious about the world and the people in it.…

— Rick Moody

Books are easy to find and easy to buy. A paperback these days only costs six or seven dollars. You can borrow…

— Jim Rohn

You learn the values that are inherent in the scene that the writer has written. You learn about who you as a…

— Angela Lansbury

You can say that literature is about topics like love, death, and all that, but I think there is only one topic…

— Alejandro Zambra

“This is not to say a writer has only one voice or is limited to the scope of her backyard. But in…

— George Ella Lyon

Much that is great in literature is an acquired taste, and you have to acquire it in the first place. Our job…

— Michael Morpurgo

“There are books, that one has for twenty years without reading them, that one always keeps at hand, that one takes along…

— Elias Canetti

With undead armies, psychotic angels and exploding airships, Scar Night is a gripping, ripping yarn which rattles along at a great pace.…

— Hal Duncan

Over the years, there certainly have been plenty of ideas that I've had and given up on, but for this one, the…

— Paul Reiser

It [fiction] allows us to see the world from the point of view of someone else and there has been quite a…

— Philip Hensher

Most of you probably didn't know that I have a new book out. Some guy put together a collection of my wit…

— George W. Bush

It would just be a pamphlet. Three pages. The first page would be Drugs I Have Taken and then a list. The…

— Ryan Jarman

“One reads to tickle and amuse one’s mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.”

— Aldous Huxley

“I had to learn, as Balzac did, that one must write volumes before signing ones own name.”

— Henry Miller

I want to tell stories that reflect how people are feeling.

— Michael Connelly

Writing is a refuge from unhappiness, but has its own sorrows.

— Mason Cooley

I don't read. I don't like to read 'Harry Potter' or anything like that. It's not my style.

— Nicole Polizzi

“I’ll write something that’s 111% true. It’ll be so true that it’ll be 100% false.”

— Jarod Kintz

I think writers worry that you might not exist in some strange way if you're not writing.

— Anne Enright

I seem always to have two or three novels going at once. It takes me a long time to finish one.

— Michael Helm

Literature is composed of quarter truths, and the quarters are often spent on penny candy.

— William H. Gass

When I write a novel I start each morning by reading for 20 minutes.

— Richard Ford

The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.

— Samuel Butler

“I kill my loneliness by reading and (then) writing, damn.”

— Desi Puspitasari

Books are seldom useful unless they are also beautiful.

— John Green

An author is a person who can never take innocent pleasure in visiting a bookstore again.

— Roy Blount, Jr

“Appreciate the moment of a first kiss; it may be the last time you own your heart.”

— robert m drake

The presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced Hermione that what they were doing was right.

— Anonymous