Writer Quotes · Page 576

“I always said I acted like a twelve-year old, so I decided to write like a twelve-year old.”

— Terri Bertha

I don't think any writer chooses what his or her work is called.

— Jennifer Weiner

“If you don't find any good reading out there, you make one.”

— Toba Beta

The shelf life of the average trade book is somewhere between milk and yogurt.

— Calvin Trillin

If we're all on the same page, no one's reading the whole book.

— Andy Hargreaves

“Seek to engage yourself in passionate reading. You will gain better understanding of life .”

— Lailah Gifty Akita

But I do not have the reader in mind when I write. No true writer does that

— Guillermo Cabrera Infante

A fictionalised memoir of my father would be a failure as a novel.

— Richard Flanagan

All my fiction starts from a feeling of unique perception, the pressure of a secret, a story that needs to be told.

— Barry Unsworth

“Formal writing does not mean gratuitously fancy writing; it means clear, clean, maximally considerate writing.”

— David Foster Wallace

I'm not one of those people that has to share personal experiences. That's not really the kind of writer I am. I'm…

— Joe Bonamassa

I didn't have a burning desire to be a writer or director - writer probably more so, certainly not a director.

— Billy Bob Thornton

That's why writing is important to me. Time goes past, and you've been somewhere and come back that hasn't hurt you, and…

— Melvyn Bragg

I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see…

— John McGahern

I don't make noise, I make moves when my moves works it makes da noise for me and while you're busy saying…

— Anonymous

[Ernest ]Hemingway always said, "Write about what you know." I think you can do that, and if you want to write about…

— William T. Vollmann

I got so discouraged, I almost stopped writing. It was my 12-year-old son who changed my mind when he said to me,…

— Madeleine L'Engle

“Life is a lot like pizza… But in fact, Hank, the fundamental thing that all critical reading does is reveal to us…

— John Green

Reading it now for the seventh or eighth time, I am more convinced than ever not merely that The Great Gatsby is…

— Jonathan Yardley

“Belle hesitated. “What is this place?” she asked. “A bit of magic, like all goodbooks,” the man replied. “An escape. A place…

— Jennifer Donnelly

But 'why then publish?' There are no rewards Of fame or profit when the world grows weary. I ask in turn why…

— Lord Byron

Writers…born not in the Halls of Education…but in the fires of necessity. Masters not of prose, form, language, or a perceived command…

— Vladislas Nikilovic

Quinn Cummings is a master story-teller and her book is nothing short of delightful. Her insights into topics like celebrity, parenting, and…

— Jen Lancaster

If I can get on to my sofa and occupy myself for four hours, at intervals through the day, scribbling my notes,…

— Alice James

“Until you begin to write, then you shall know the wonders of the written word.”

— Lailah Gifty Akita

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, but usually fiction is just better.

— Jon Weisman

But put two librarians' heads together, and mountains move.

— Richard Peck

“The book is like the wheel - once invented, it cannot be bettered.”

— Umberto Eco

Writers do not write about a place because they belong there, but because they want to.

— Tony Earley

I always carry a book with me to read on the bus, and I tend to arrive everywhere early.

— Amanda Knox

“Every fucking corner of everything you write is precious, if it isn't why would you write it?”

— Theresa Rebeck

If I'm doing something I know I can pull off, then that's not the book I should be writing.

— Jennifer Egan

I think computers are the ultimate writing tool. I'm a very slow writer, so I appreciate it every day.

— Sherry Turkle

“When in doubt keep reading. A book will never die on you”

— John van de Ruit

“If you don't write when you don't have time for it, you won't write when you do have time for it.”

— Katerina Stoykova Klemer

But I can't and don't ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems.

— Andrew Motion

Whatever's going on in my life shows up in the writing room.

— Sam Hunt

“You don't write what you know you write to find out what you don't know”

— Patricia Hemphall

But how do I get to having to write a book?... It was a mother who bore me, not an inkwell!

— Robert Musil

A book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it.

— T. S. Eliot