Writer Quotes · Page 419

If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway.

— Philip Pullman

Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they're doing and why they're doing it.

— Yann Martel

“Shakespeare wrote Moby-Dick, using Melville as a Ouija board.”

— Ray Bradbury

I love writing with pen and paper; I hate technology.

— Zawe Ashton

All books will become light in proportion as you find light in them.

— Anonymous

“Everyone has a book inside them, it's just a matter of getting it out”

— S. P. Foster

Any book is a Good Book, and wherever they keep the Good Book safe is also the House a the Lord.

— Kami Garcia

Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough for literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don't believe the writer should know too much where he's going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprint—old man…

— James Thurber

“That there can still be as-yet untranslated fiction by [Tove] Jansson is simultaneously an aberration and a delight, like finding buried treasure.”

— Ali Smith

Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of…

— Yann Martel

This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a…

— Charles Dickens

I am suspicious of writers who say their work is original and influenced by nobody. If it is, it is probably uninteresting.…

— Teju Cole

There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people,…

— Anonymous

I don't think there was a time I ever thought of myself as anything but a writer. I thought I was going…

— Shonda Rhimes

“She looked down at her book and traced the letters of the title with her finger. "Why do you think I like…

— Brittany Geragotelis

“When I’m writing, I’m trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience, rather than separate myself from it and…

— Charlie Kaufman

“She kept a stack of books near the tub so she could read in the bath, even though the edges of the…

— Alice Hoffman

When you are reading about a book, you focus on the main character, of course. When you have something in common with…

— Marley Dias

You spend hours alone, only with your thoughts, and you torture yourself. It's a tendency of many writers to temper the self-destructive…

— Ben Gibbard

Very conscious of the fact that an effort was being made to destroy my mind, because I was deprived of books, deprived…

— Wole Soyinka

“Every act of reading is an act of forgetting: the experience of reading is a palimpsest, in which each text partially covers…

— James A. Secord

“Writers have come to master nearly every trade. They are inventors and entrepreneurs of character, plot, and dialogue. They are the eager…

— Garrett Dennert

I don't want to overplay the diary's significance, but it's a really helpful batting aid. It's not an obsession because I don't…

— Andrew Strauss

The business of writing is empathising with situations that aren't your own.

— Richard North Patterson

If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

“Don't die with your wisdom and experiences longing to live forever after you are gone: write a book.”

— Dr. Jacinta Mpalyenkana

“We are very fond of books. You can learn nearly everything from them that rabbits can't teach you.”

— Alan Snow

For me, a memoir is nonfiction and nonfiction has to be absolutely true.

— Akhil Sharma

I think writing is such a great talent, and if I was better, I would love to be a writer.

— Shiloh Fernandez

Writing is hard work, but a lot of fun, too. It allows me to live out some of my fantasies.

— Christopher Darden

No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

I write what I'd like to read and just hope that, along the way, others might like to read them, too.

— Kate Morton

I've rejected certain books, then gone back later and loved them.

— J. Courtney Sullivan

The Guild is the authoritative voice of American writers.

— Scott Turow

“WHEN IT MATTERS THE MOST… DON'T PLEAD THE 5TH WHEN YOU'VE BEEN TESTIFYING ALL DAY! SPEAK UP!”

— Qwana M. "BabyGirl" Reynolds-Frasier

When writing about oneself, one must strive to be truthful. Truth is more important than modesty.

— Roald Dahl

I'm a failed musician rather than a successful writer.

— Irvine Welsh

“On writing: I don't like doing this, but it feels so good when I stop.”

— Richard Ford

Books don't change people; paragraphs do, Sometimes even sentences.

— John Piper