Writer Quotes · Page 375

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

— Julia Alvarez

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

— T. S. Eliot

“Writing is the food for my soul; not a medium to earn name & fame.”

— Mallika Tripathi

I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.

— William Carlos Williams

Books can ignite fires in your mind, because they carry ideas for kindling, and art for matches.

— Gary D. Schmidt

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.

— Leo Tolstoy

Good literature can be created only with something that is different from literature.

— Italo Calvino

“The hardest part of writing is the same as doing your homework...it's staying seated in your chair.”

— Anonymous

Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take the pen and put them out on paper to keep them…

— Mark Twain

“Sylvia Day is the undisputed mistress of tender, erotic romance. Her books are a luxury every woman deserves.”

— Teresa Medeiros

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer,…

— Tana French

I never wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a book illustrator. I used to hurry home from school and…

— Natalie Babbitt

I always knew that I wanted to live with books, even as a child, because we traveled a lot. Home was the…

— Alberto Manguel

“No one looks too closely at a librarian. People are afraid of going blind from the glare of ssss -ssso much compressed…

— Joe Hill

The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“As a general rule, highly rational writers (like Nabokov) write most comfortably in the morning, and mainly intuitive writers write most comfortably…

— John Gardner

“No one will write books once they reach heaven, but there is an excellent library, containing all the books written up to…

— Evelyn Waugh

To me, writing is about how we see. The writers I want to read teach me how to see-see the world differently.…

— Terry Tempest Williams

I grew up around books. When I first held the book and it was a substantive, tangible thing, and I thought of…

— Paul Allen

“How to read this book: Even after I was told my father was dead, I believed (I still believe) that I could…

— Christopher Boucher

You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for - if you…

— P. L. Travers

“I rather liked him.I asked him to come and see us.' ‘Oh Christ !’ ‘But, Bradley, you mustn’t reject people,you musn't just…

— Iris Murdoch

If you're not reading - with your heart as well as your brain - you will be one stupid grown up. Even…

— James Patterson

My father had always identified himself as a writer to my mother when they met. When they met, he was writing this…

— Nick Flynn

Writing is not just about putting words on a page. Ideas have to cook first.

— Fiona Barton

“Literature cannot be imposed; it must be discovered.”

— Amy Joy

“I love to read books! There are so many authors that I think are really fun to read.”

— Tom Angleberger

It's pretty intense writing about my own life, my own struggles.

— Taylor Swift

This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.

— Julian Barnes

I believe if you've written a book, you have to stand up and say, 'Guys, buy the book.'

— Ravi Subramanian

For my type of story and my kind of writing, I think 'Vanity Fair' is the right forum.

— Dominick Dunne

When you are a writer, the assist-to-turnover ratio... there are a lot more turnovers than assists.

— Jeff Baena

One battle doesn't make a campagin, but critics treat one book, good or bad, like a whole war.

— Ernest Hemingway

I really don't keep an outline; I don't organize in any way. I just write.

— Kevin Kwan

Nobody ever became a writer just by wanting to be one.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Seventy million books in America's libraries, but the one you want to read is always out.

— Thomas Lansing Masson

I don't think you can write an experience as you're having it without being an idiot.

— Jessa Crispin

“Fiction gives us the second chance that life denies us.”

— Paul Theroux

I love Walter Mosley and Robert Parker crime novels. And I read a lot of music reviews.

— Van Hunt

I never wanted to be anything but a writer, and I never let go of it.

— Jonathan Evison