Writer Quotes · Page 523

With contemporary writers, I often buy books and then realise I've bought them before.

— Prue Leith

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

— Anonymous

Books are islands in the ocean of time. They are also oases in the deserts of time.

— Lawrence Clark Powell

I never write. Never! I do not even remember if I can write.

— Young Thug

If you want to write good copy, you must be where the things are.

— Anonymous

I'm not a nerd, don't plan to be a nerd and read books - which I can't do at all.

— Virat Kohli

In picture-making the writer is the most important cog in the wheel.

— Samuel Goldwyn

“Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future. Just ask Ray Bradbury.”

— Kami Garcia

I love telling stories. I love the intimacy between the writer and reader. When you write sketches it's over in two minutes.…

— David Walliams

Writers have no real area of expertise. They are merely generalists with a highly inflamed sense of punctuation.

— Lorrie Moore

I only make notes, I don't write dialogues in full. And the notes are very much based on my knowledge of person.

— Abbas Kiarostami

“His elegant librarianship ... made me appreciate how order is created: Not through grand schemes - to which I was often drawn…

— Avi Steinberg

I have two books that were published quite some time ago. I start to read about three sentences. I have to close…

— Patty Duke

“I want people who write to crash or dive below the surface, where life is so cold and confusing and hard to…

— Anne Lamott

“Books are keys to wisdom's treasure; Books are gates to lands of pleasure; Books are paths that upward lead; Books are friends.…

— Emilie Poulsson

I write a lot when I'm feeling bummed, but other times, you get locked in, and it's totally personal. If you're really…

— Kurt Vile

For me - showing a half-finished manuscript is tricky. Just as a bird will get spooked and abandon her eggs if some…

— Donna Tartt

“In what must surely be considered one of the great lost scripts of history (or a Saturday Night Live sketch), Chase brought…

— Brett Martin

“Zaid's finest moment, however, comes in his second paragraph, when he says that "the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of…

— Nick Hornby

Writers need to learn their trade, and how to negotiate the increasingly difficult marketplace. The trade can be taught and learned just…

— Ursula K. Le Guin

Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things…

— Michel de Montaigne

I actually do bits of my writing in sort of incidental spaces - when I'm traveling on the Tube or on a…

— Johnny Flynn

“-why had she found the story so absorbing? Of course it was quite possible she hadn't. Maybe she merely preferred a novel--any…

— James Hilton

The fictionally correct have all the answers, and that's what's wrong with them. They're artistic technocrats. There's no dilemma so knotty, no…

— Walter Kirn

To be an honest writer, you have to be away from home, and totally alone in life.

— Miguel Syjuco

Neither the writer nor the reader can save the world by themselves. Or escape it entirely.

— Amitava Kumar

“You'll never be as good as the next page you write, or as bad as the last one.”

— D.E.M. Emrys

Half the time I pick up a book, that's what I'm trying to get.

— Donald Miller

A publisher many years ago asked if I'd like to write a novel for £50. And I said, 'Absolutely.'

— Tom Stoppard

Since childhood, I wrote a lot of fiction, a lot of stories, but I most loved writing essays.

— Jill Lepore

Well, I'm reading about the battle of New Orleans right now. I've got an eclectic reading list.

— George W. Bush

The language fictional characters use is chosen for effect, at least if the author is concentrating.

— John M. Ford

Anything in literature, including memory, is second-hand,

— Herta Muller

“How can you be nervous? Don't you see? We're in a library.”

— Eilis O'Neal

Landlord of a bordello! The company's good and the mornings are quiet, which is the best time to write.

— William Faulkner

I still buy actual books. The smell, having it in your hands - there's really no substitute.

— Nathan Fillion

In Colombia is where I discovered myself as a writer.

— Nicky Jam

This strong sense of who I am that I've always had, since I was very young, is what makes me write.

— Quentin S. Crisp

Anything said off the cuff has usually been written on it first.

— Robin Skelton

I'm much more interested in allowing a story to happen, and people find whatever meaning is in there.

— Colum McCann