Writer Quotes · Page 424

I conceive that a knowledge of books is the basis on which all other knowledge rests.

— George Washington

I have a sweet tooth for reading, so books migrate to my zip code en mass.

— Dawn Olivieri

Being a good writer may result in your being nicer to more people, having a bigger positive impact.

— Marty Nemko

Fiction needs writers and readers, and writers should cultivate both.

— Laura Lippman

I pick up my pen. It flows. A building appears. There it is. There is nothing more to say.

— Oscar Niemeyer

If I could go upstairs and write every day, I would be happy. I don't need recreation.

— Henry Petroski

I have two rules for a great book: make me think and make me smile.

— Adam Grant

All characters are based on elements of a writer's personal experience.

— Robert Holdstock

“So the librarians at UCLA worked very hard to find another copy of Villacorta’s rendition of the Dresden Codex, and lent it…

— Richard P. Feynman

“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. . . . If it is a…

— Wendy Wax

My writing time needs to surround itself with empty stretches, or at least unpeopled ones, for the writing takes place in an…

— Maxine Kumin

After 58 years you'd think writing would get easier. It doesn't. If you're lucky, you become harder to please. That's all right,…

— Elmore Leonard

Novels definitely come more naturally to me. When I write short stories, it's always a fight against it expanding.

— Maggie Shipstead

“You must seduce poetry with the heart of your words before she'll sprinkle you with the magic of hers.”

— Curtis Tyrone Jones

There's a level of discipline I use as a writer, designed to get better at what I'm doing, that requires quite a…

— Anonymous

Never think, because you cannot write a letter easily, that it is better not to write at all. The most awkward note…

— Emily Post

In TheColorful Apocalypse, Greg Bottoms explores the frontier between inspiration and psychosis with the expressive power, the passionate fervor, and the faithfully…

— Madison Smartt Bell

My theory is that Kurt had a lot of residual pain from his childhood. And when you pile that on top of…

— Charles J. Shields

“My favorite thing in the world to do is read a book. I read Heidi, which I love, then I read another…

— Mindy Warshaw Skolsky

I have lots of notebooks around, because one great advantage of writing by hand-in addition to how much it slows you down-is…

— John Irving

“Writing is difficult. You do it all alone without encouragement and without any certainty that you'll ever be published or paid or…

— Octavia E. Butler

Our day-to-day lives are pretty chaotic. So in terms of the writing part, you have to get pretty disciplined about finding quiet…

— Sarah Kay

“Each page in a book will discover other pages and other books. Thus books will seep out of their bindings and weave…

— Kevin Kelly

If I had an author superpower, I would like to have the ability to stop time for everyone else. I feel like…

— Rainbow Rowell

What harbor can receive you more securely than a great library?

— Italo Calvino

Madam, you ask me how I compose. I compose sitting down.

— Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

She wanted a book to take her places she couldn't get to herself.

— Jeffrey Eugenides

I achieved perfection, my type of perfection - visual storytelling. Storytelling was my style.

— Jack Kirby

“Write about something you know. Try to leave your readers better off than they were before.”

— John R. Erickson

No writer has a right to make that much money. Indeed, without diabolical assistance, no writer can.

— Wole Soyinka

I love a good book. I'm not a club girl. I like hanging out and reading my books.

— Madelaine Petsch

Every time I wrote fiction, I was discouraged, and every time I wrote nonfiction, I was encouraged.

— Ron Chernow

I do want to say the process of writing a novel is riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing.

— Meg Wolitzer

Writing is not a profession. It's a calling. It's almost holy.

— Jamaica Kincaid

I'm a commercial writer, not an author. Margaret Mitchell was an author. She wrote one book.

— Mickey Spillane

The only difference between a published and unpublished writer is a tolerance for imperfection.

— Junot Diaz

“trace me, then write things where your fingers stop”

— ehddah

Writing has been a way of explaining to myself the things I do not understand.

— Rosario Castellanos

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

— Harper Lee

Write a little bit every day, each day. Visit it, every day - in other words, show up for work.

— Richard Bausch