Writer Quotes · Page 345

Living involves tearing up one rough draft after another

— Anonymous

“A real book is not one that’s read, but one that reads us.”

— Amit Tiwari

Somehow I have the feeling that in some book is the great treasure I've been looking for all my life.

— Jessamyn West

“Just write. That's my only tip. And read. I guess that's two.”

— Shannon Celebi

A woman's destiny, they say, is not fulfilled until she holds in her arms her own little book.

— Caroline Mytinger

Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.

— William Cobbett

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

— E. B. White

The world is a great book, of which they that never stir from home read only a page.

— Saint Augustine

“A large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the learner. It is much better to confine yourself to a…

— James A. Michener

“I don't think you can reach your potential as a writer unless you're a passionate reader, AND read passionately.”

— Michelle D. Kwasney

I don't suppose a writing man ever really gets rid of his old crocus-yellow neckties. Sooner or later, I think, they show…

— J. D. Salinger

Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

— William Shakespeare

“During his reading hours, which were between one and five o'clock in the morning, but not every morning, he had come to…

— Julio Cortázar

Oh, 'Pandaemonium', by Chris Brookmyre! Just fabulous - such a layered, beautifully structured, engaging, intelligent book. I love all Chris's stuff, but…

— Diana Gabaldon

“Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction can be difficult, lonely job; it’s like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub.…

— Stephen King

“When we knowingly write in ways that we would not want others to write to us, we abrade the trust that sustains…

— Joseph M. Williams

The detective story itself is in a dilemma. It is a vein which is in danger of being worked out, the demand…

— Cyril Connolly

Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal…

— Jane Yolen

Book publishing was never a heaven "run by editors", and it is by no means today a hell "run by accountants." If…

— Patrick Nielsen Hayden

In my later novels, I systematically used the convention, and then a moment came - when did it come? With The Book…

— Paul Auster

"The best is oftentimes the enemy of the good;" and without claiming for an instant that title of good for my book,…

— Richard Chenevix Trench

For me, it's a way to find a fiction within a fiction. To find a way to uncover that blunder within the…

— Sergio Chejfec

Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired (by passionate devotion to them) produces such an ecstasy that the buying…

— A. Edward Newton

No creative writer knows what is commercial and what isn't. You just write from your heart, you write from the deepest, creative…

— Mel Brooks

“another book is another dimension. another life full of imagination.”

— Kevin Armando

A lot of writing is a form of seeing - putting down what you see in terms of action and landscape.

— Jonathan Ames

Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.

— Richard Wright

I write because I am curious. I am curious about me.

— Pat Mora

As the child outlives the father,so must the character bury the author.

— Chuck Palahniuk

To call that writing, madam, is an insult to quills and ink across the world.

— Julia Quinn

And the stuff that I write, is even tougher than dykes

— Nas

“Literature is the right use of language irrespective of the subject or reason of utterance.”

— Evelyn Waugh

One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library..

— Bell Hooks

I always say that 'Futurama' is real, and 'The Simpsons' is fiction.

— Matt Groening

I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.

— John Irving

The habit of writing clearly soon comes to the writer who is a severe critic to himself.

— Anthony Trollope

For me a book has always been a chance to reach out and connect to someone and not be alone.

— Margaret Stohl

“Writers owed their readers a duty of care, of mercy.”

— Ian McEwan

Give a kid a book, and you change the world. In a way, even the universe.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

I love the idea of books being more than books, or being, rather, something other than books.

— Jonathan Safran Foer