So I really began as a failed poet - although when I first wanted to be a writer, I learned to write… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
I'm quite adept at writing two or sometimes even three stories at once. So if I get stuck on one story, I… — Zara Cox Copy Share Image
The novel is very much alive, indeed. In Toronto at the Sixth Annual International Festival of Authors (October 1985) I listened to… — William Golding Copy Share Image
Nonfiction requires enormous discipline. You construct the terms of your story, and then you stick to them. — Barbara Kingsolver Copy Share Image
My favorite books have a personality and complexion as distinctly drawn as if the author's portrait were framed into the paragraphs and… — Amos Bronson Alcott Copy Share Image
You have to be an extremely good reader to appreciate what a good writer is. There are some people who are completely… — Robert Caro Copy Share Image
I'm Aries and I have heard a lot about it, but I don't know if it's the truth. But it's always entertaining… — Jackson Wang Copy Share Image
I think growing up the way I did has made me a lot more objective, and that's important in the process of… — Mitski Copy Share Image
If you're really a good writer and deserve that honored position, then by God, you'll write, and you'll be read, and you'll… — Rod Serling Copy Share Image
I have SO many books I didn't sell. Some my agent rejected outright, others made it all the way to my editor… — Sarah Dessen Copy Share Image
There is humanist enterprise of the book, and amongst that there are many, many stories. And that is why at the end,… — Marina Warner Copy Share Image
“Let us being again. To take some examples: why should “literature” still designate that which already breaks away from literature—away from what… — Jacques Derrida Copy Share Image
Some of the writers I admire who seem very, very funny and very emotional to me can develop a closeness with the… — Sloane Crosley Copy Share Image
I wrote my graduate thesis at New York University on hard-boiled fiction from the 1930s and 1940s, so, for about two years,… — Megan Abbott Copy Share Image
A Thousand Pardons began at the beginning. I wanted it to be one continuous, almost breathless kind of story. In order to… — Jonathan Dee Copy Share Image
“We’re not talking about your life. We’re talking about your writing. Your imagination. Your creativity. And it’s time you learned there’s a… — Jennifer Echols Copy Share Image
I want my writing to reach people. I don't write for a market. I write from my heart, something that appeals to… — Ashwin Sanghi Copy Share Image
I think it's more helpful to keep your books sort of a singular focus. Get it said, get it said well, fascinate… — Larry Winget Copy Share Image
There is a type of writer that can happily bury themselves in the country and dig very deep, but I'm not like… — Jay McInerney Copy Share Image
“I earned a mater's degree in journalism and took the first job offered, as a sports writer. Instead of chasing my own… — Mitch Albom Copy Share Image
Keep at it! The one talent that's indispensable to a writer is persistence. You must write the book, else there is no… — Tom Clancy Copy Share Image
'Constructed Worlds' comes from a novel draft that I wrote in my early twenties and reread/revised only in my late thirties. — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
Loaded with note cards for research papers that I was hopelessly behind on, I'd enter the Public Library only to end up… — Stuart Dybek Copy Share Image
I read a lot of literary theory when I was in graduate school, especially about novels, and the best book I ever… — Lev Grossman Copy Share Image
When you do something a little bit extreme or weird, it helps make it more interesting and more amenable to being written… — Robin Sloan Copy Share Image
Writing is the easiest thing in the world… Just try it sometime. I sit up with a pipe in my mouth and… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Oddly, the meanings of books are defined for me much more by their beginnings and middles than they are by their endings. — Lev Grossman Copy Share Image
When I finish a first draft, it's always just as much of a mess as it's always been. I still make the… — Michael Chabon Copy Share Image
Writers are often alone when they work. Hours pass in silence as one long moment; light fades as day turns back to… — Simon Van Booy Copy Share Image
The writing itself is no big deal. The editing, and even more than that, the self-doubt, is excruciatingly impossible. — Jonathan Safran Foer Copy Share Image
In fact, isn't it a joy - there is hardly a greater one - to find a new book, a living book,… — Katherine Mansfield Copy Share Image
One of the problems of writing is that anyone who commits themselves to that process has to believe that they're good. — Steven Bochco Copy Share Image
I love books that give you space to climb inside there. And you have to run to keep up in places, and… — Steven Hall Copy Share Image
Readers let me know that they like books that have more to them than meets the eye. Had they not let me… — E. L. Konigsburg Copy Share Image
“In a sense, we can tell a lot about anyone by looking at what books, if any, he reads, at what books… — James V. Schall Copy Share Image
“A writer isn’t a writer because he has a membership card but because he writes. How do you know what bright ideas… — Mikhail Bulgakov Copy Share Image
She never said, "No, don't buy that trash," or "Pick a real book." She knew they were all real books. This is… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
After a while, when the writer is mature, it doesn't really matter - not because of finances but because of reputation. It… — Derek Walcott Copy Share Image
Sometimes I'll hear a phrase or a word and write it down in my little black notebook (a writer's best mate), then… — Paul Kane Copy Share Image
As a schoolboy, I loved Charles Dickens. His 'David Copperfield' has had the strongest influence on me - I looked up to… — Ruskin Bond Copy Share Image
