Writer Quotes · Page 364

No reader wants to sit through the same scene four times in a row, unless they're radically different.

— Celeste Ng

“One of the great books of our time. I should know; I wrote it." (apocryphal)”

— Tim Roux

It's okay to be a bad writer if you have something to say.

— Bill Stott

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

— Haruki Murakami

The modernness of all good books seems to give men an existence as wide as man.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

What some people find in religion a writer may find in his craft...a kind of breaking through to glory.

— John Steinbeck

A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing.

— Don Roff

“No one can teach you how to write. A writer writes, plain and simple. You improve by doing.”

— Scott Ciencin

To the question: How do the authors of sketches, stories and novels get along in life, the following answer can or must…

— Robert Walser

I'm an immigrant writer, or an African writer, or an Ethiopian-American writer, and occasionally an American writer according to the whims and…

— Dinaw Mengestu

“ I never said turning the page was going to be easy. That page has memories & people. Its getting full &…

— Nathacha Nucamendi

There's a way in which filmmaking is a director's medium and television is a writer's medium, so even as TV gets more…

— Alan Taylor

I've often thought that my scruples about stealing books were the only thing that stood in the way of my being a…

— Malcolm Bradbury

I wish I could write more make-believe. It's a lot easier to write about hard times and when things are going wrong.…

— Gwen Stefani

I always tell students that writing a poem and publishing it are two quite separate things, and you should write what you…

— Wendy Cope

My ideal is to write most of the day, then go running, find friends and socialise all evening; my mind recharges with…

— Philipp Meyer

The world is changing from day to day; it is high time for our writers to take off their masks, look frankly,…

— Lu Xun

There are very few professions in which people just sit down and think hard for five or six hours a day all…

— Tobias Wolff

Pretty much, the writer's in charge in theater. Of course you're in charge with the director, but no one can change your…

— David Lindsay-Abaire

The serious reader in the age of technology is a rebel by definition: a protester without a placard, a Luddite without hammer…

— Eric Burns

I'm not a writer that writes every day. I just kind of have ideas. I jot them down when I have them,…

— Dee Rees

The amount of response I get, in both a negative and a positive context, is completely related to the amount of books…

— Chuck Klosterman

I always wanted to be a writer, and I did want to be a novelist. In college I took a couple of…

— Anne Fadiman

I first tried a novel when I was 14. First finished one when I was 16. First started working on stuff that…

— Harry Turtledove

“There are so many good books waiting to be read, I’ll never go back and read one twice.”

— Deb Baker

“Fiction allows you to go deeper into the truth. You can put anything down and you can take chances.”

— Peter Matthieson

When I wrote 'Dear Fatty,' I realised that sitting and writing alone is an absolute joy.

— Dawn French

I was anticipating that some readers might misread [the book] ROOM itself as a hymn to homeschooling.

— Emma Donoghue

“Is it possible to write a reverent novel," said Nassrin, "and to have it be good?...”

— Azar Nafisi

Bad books always lie. They lie most of all about the human condition.

— Walker Percy

The books housed in one's first adult bookshelf are the geological bed of who we wish to become

— Sheridan Hay

“One idea to a sentence is still the best advice that anyone has ever given on writing.”

— Bill Bryson

You have to write a lot. And you have to rewrite what you wrote a lot more.

— Holly Black

There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing at all.

— Stephen King

The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read.

— Francoise Sagan

I can't lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are lots of bad writers.

— Stephen King

I have more to say as a writer than from behind a wok.

— Eddie Huang

“People live in my head. If they do anything interesting, don't worry, I write it down for ya.”

— Lauren DeStefano

A novel should be as like life as a painting, but not as like life as a piece of waxwork.

— Mary Russell Mitford

Literature is less involved in giving you answers and more dedicated to giving you insight.

— Junot Diaz