Writer Quotes · Page 603

“After being turned down by numerous publishers, he decided to write for posterity.”

— George Ade

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers.

— Irvin S. Cobb

There's a happiness that comes from writing that I won't live without.

— Maria Semple

“Reading a non-fiction book is like a religious experience.”

— Rachel Perry

When you write you have to reside in the unknown for as long as possible.

— Darcey Steinke

Literature belongs first and foremost to the language in which it is being written.

— Amos Oz

It's kind of amazing that people will travel because of a book. I admire that.

— Frances Mayes

I'm always interested in storytelling and whatever form that comes in.

— Seth Numrich

“Writers are either bullfighters, who risk all for art... or bullshitters, who make fake passes in an empty ring. To be a…

— Anonymous

I wanted to write it long before I wrote Every Night, Josephine! I'd been thinking about it a long time.

— Jacqueline Susann

Books entered my house under cover of night, from the four winds, smuggled in by woodland creatures, and then they never left.…

— Anonymous

Fiction writing is a strange business when you think about it. You sit down and weave a network of lies to explore…

— Wally Lamb

“What's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you've set for yourself. (...) Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation,…

— Haruki Murakami

If a writer is good at what he does, it's not easy to do a good job every day... To invent something…

— Barun Sobti

I marveled at how they were all closed up, asleep with their secrets unseen until you reached up and took the book…

— Deborah Lawrenson

“Agents don’t sell books, good writing does. Plotting and characterization are what interest an editor. Agents negotiate contracts, but they don’t sell…

— Debbie Macomber

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library; for who can see the…

— Samuel Johnson

The best bit of novel writing is being allowed to write exactly what you want at the speed that you want, and…

— Nick Hornby

“Things that only a writer would understand—you’re writing a character—you tell that character who she or he is and they stop you…

— Lisa Marbly-Warir

Clear writing is universal. People talk about writing down to an audience or writing up to an audience; I think that's nonsense.…

— Malcolm Gladwell

I think most fiction writers naturally start by writing short stories, but some of us don't. When I first started writing, I…

— Andrea Barrett

“I find that the writing of a memoir has two functions. One is to pass on, as much as you’re willing to…

— Neil Simon

I'm really such a bumbler! Writing fiction is like arranging furniture in a dark room. I can't see what I'm doing. I…

— Joanna Scott

There is a reason there is no such thing as a folk writer. But to be a writer you have learn what…

— David Sedaris

Many writers profess great exactness in punctuation who never yet made a point.

— George D. Prentice

“I'm finally coming to terms with the unalloyed insanity of being a writer. Now that's coming out.”

— A.K. Kuykendall

Most writers who leave their country physically have already left it mentally and emotionally.

— Ariel Dorfman

The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel.

— Gustave Flaubert

But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library.

— Andrew Wiles

I think the writer's job is to paint the gray because no life is clearly defined.

— Andre Dubus

I'm really not used to people paying attention to my writing.

— Christopher Priest

Writing is one of the most assertive things a person can do.

— Jhumpa Lahiri

I'm writing from a place of - a center of authenticity, somewhere that only I know how to write from.

— K'naan

And if you don't live, you have nothing to write about.

— Maynard James Keenan

“The books I love the most make it harder for me to live.”

— Micheal Silverblatt

I also believe that if you're really a writer, you'll write, and that nobody could stop you.

— Jennifer Weiner

I like writing in an illustrative, descriptive way. I prefer describing to rather than explaining.

— Iron & Wine

“on short stories: something glimpsed from the corner of the eye, in passing.”

— V.S. Pritchett

For books are as meats and viands are; some of good, some of evil sub-stance.

— John Milton

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

— Ernest Hemingway