Writer Quotes · Page 331

I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion.

— Edna Ferber

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

— Anne Lamott

I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.

— Wislawa Szymborska

Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.

— Mark Haddon

I do not know any reading more easy, more fascinating, more delightful than a catalogue.

— Anatole France

“He smells the same—peppermint and cedar and a hint of old books.”

— Cath Crowley

To write well it is first necessary to have something to say.

— Stephen Leacock

Writing is about culture and should be about everything. That's what makes it what it is.

— Irvine Welsh

The cool thing about having a book is that it takes on its own life. Once it's in the world, you can't…

— Cate Marvin

There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.

— Anonymous

If I end up having a novel that sells really well and that allows me to pay for health insurance and mortgage…

— Ken Liu

It is no more expected of most producers to read a book than it is, say, of Ted Williams to dust off…

— Mordecai Richler

Prereading is a game changer. It changed my life. Everyone is smarter when they have seen the material before. You will be…

— Anonymous

Pathos and poignancy are, to me, tactics and techniques; in my work as a writer, I fetch them from my toolbox and…

— Michel Faber

“Rows and rows of books lined the shelves...full of ideas and images, worlds imagined, worlds perceived; full of fingerprints and sudden laughter…

— Kim Edwards

As a former writer for the 'National Lampoon,' I've probably contributed to the sea of sarcasm in which we live.

— P. J. O'Rourke

“It's been fun to have it take on a life of its own. I feel like I'm not even creating as much…

— Pierce Brown

When I was in my teens, I was very, very keen on being the author of a book. What the book was…

— Tom Stoppard

At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life…

— Christopher Hitchens

“I wish i could write them down, these little coloured parables or poems that live for a moment in some cell of…

— Oscar Wilde

There's an old adage in writing: 'Don't tell, but show.' Writing is not psychology. We do not talk 'about' feelings. Instead the…

— Natalie Goldberg

But I am I now; and so many other millions are so irretrievably their own special variety of 'I' that I can…

— Sylvia Plath

Send it to someone who can publish it. And if they won't publish it, send it to someone else who can publish…

— Robert B. Parker

“Initially [my favorite books] seem to immerse me in another life, but ultimately they immerse me in me; I am looking through…

— Derek Thompson

Stop trying to write sentences and start trying to write stories.

— James Patterson

I do think there's some aspect of being a novelist that is a little crazy making.

— Anna Quindlen

To write is to descend, to excavate, to go underground.

— Anais Nin

A writer must take risks, defy the odds, be a bit obsessed and a little mad.

— Robert Cormier

He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If nothing else, a house is a place to keep books in.”

— Robert Pogue Harrison

Ideally, we should like to define a good book as one which 'permits, invites, or compels' good reading

— C. S. Lewis

In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.

— H. L. Mencken

Getting my library card was like citizenship; it was like American citizenship.

— Oprah Winfrey

I'm a novelist. Fortunately I don't have to rule the world.

— Salman Rushdie

'The Hummingbird's Daughter' took 20 years to write.

— Luis Alberto Urrea

To a bibliophile, there is but one thing better than a box of new books, and that is a box of old…

— Will Thomas

Book tours are almost designed to beat out of an author any affection he has for his book.

— Michael Lewis

I'm incurably nosey - so naturally I'm a great reader.

— Gillian Cross

Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing.

— Anonymous

“Teach a child to read and he/she will pass a literary test.”

— George W. Bush