The need to express one's self in writing springs from a maladjustment of life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent… — Andre Maurois Copy Share Image
Ultimately, you can only ever write what you know. It's logically and philosophically impossible to write what you don't know. — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
“Situations and people are a lot like books. Always take time to read them, pause, and then read again. Make sure you… — Matthew Wilson Copy Share Image
I go into Daunt Books in Marylebone every couple of weeks. My wife Sara demolishes books, but I only buy stuff occasionally.… — Noel Gallagher Copy Share Image
I try to write short novels and leave details out not because I want to be minimalist, but because I think that… — Mohsin Hamid Copy Share Image
It may be observed of good writing, as of good blood, that it is much easier to say what it is composed… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
I think that writers have natural canvases, and my canvas, even in short stories, often seems to be the scope of a… — Lauren Groff Copy Share Image
“...library terror - that feeling of being hopelessly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of available books...” — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
Without the book business it would be difficult or impossible for true books to find their true readers and without that solitary… — John McGahern Copy Share Image
“Every lover of books has authors whom he reads over and over again, whom he cares for as persons and not as… — Charles Horton Cooley Copy Share Image
“I say to myself that the result of the unnatural effort to which I subject myself, writing, must be the respiration of… — Italo Calvino Copy Share Image
“Writing has become more than just a profession, and hobby…it has become a way to express my feelings and pour my entire… — Nina Jean Slack Copy Share Image
I work via the high-tension-wire method, which is maybe going for long periods without writing while the tension builds up - when… — Jayne Anne Phillips Copy Share Image
A writer, or at least a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: “Whom do you write for?”… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because… — Anais Nin Copy Share Image
I'm not standing above the audience trying to manipulate them as a puppet master or a trickster; I'm inside the story I'm… — Scott Derrickson Copy Share Image
I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer's block, oh,… — Barbara Kingsolver Copy Share Image
I am becoming increasingly difficult to please as a reader, but I adore being surprised by a really wonderful book, written by… — Alexandra Fuller Copy Share Image
The function of the novel is the exploration of the human condition. Really, that's what it's all about. — Patrick O'Brian Copy Share Image
I try to write books that are different from the books I've already written. I think one of the thing I really… — James Frey Copy Share Image
I'm not one of those people who's so blinded by my own work and my sweat. It's kind of risky writing a… — Questlove Copy Share Image
The best children's book writers are not people who have kids, but people who write from the child within themselves. — Andrea Brown Copy Share Image
“Whenever there's something wrong with your writing, suspect that there's something wrong with your thinking.” — Patricia T. O'Conner Copy Share Image
“I need a sitting room where I can entertain my friends, but I must have a library where my books entertain me.” — great-grandson of John & Abigail Adams Brooks Adams Copy Share Image
Writers need their totems, their altars. Mine, I feel, share the same randomness and utility of those belonging to painters I know,… — Kevin Young Copy Share Image
Those books of mine that are remunerative - I'm not talking about poetry here - take years to write, and I am… — Vikram Seth Copy Share Image
“Hey, you write with a ballpoint pen, and I write with a ballpoint pen ... Let’s make us the Blue Pen Club!… — Melissa Terras Copy Share Image
Reality always outstrips fiction. Whatever you make up, something more incredible always pops up in real life. — David Walliams Copy Share Image
“I keep telling you, you don't pay enough attention to the minor characters. A novel should be like a street full of… — Irène Némirovsky Copy Share Image
The advice I would offer to any writer is that even when you think you have revised your book to the point… — Michael Korda Copy Share Image
I’ll just say one word: Icarus. If you get it, great. If you don’t, that’s fine too. But you should probably read… — Tony Wilson Copy Share Image
A 3K word story might well be done in some caffeine-and-nicotine-fuelled 36 hour session, and at the end of it, there'll be… — Hal Duncan Copy Share Image
I write essays first because I have a passionate relationship to the subject and second because the subject is one that people… — Susan Sontag Copy Share Image
If writing a novel is a year's exile to a foreign country, writing a short story is a weekend spent somewhere exotic.… — Neil Gaiman Copy Share Image
Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child...Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature… — Orson Scott Card Copy Share Image
I don't believe in writer's block, writing well is very easy; it's writing horribly, the horrible work necessary to do to get… — Dean Young Copy Share Image
I just want to write. It's like once I get those obsessive thoughts out of my head, once they're written down, they're… — Susane Colasanti Copy Share Image
When you can bring yourself to write about it one day, you will find it all less painful. It is a catharsis… — Danielle Steel Copy Share Image
I suddenly understood that if every moment of a book should be taken seriously, then every moment of a life should be… — Sherman Alexie Copy Share Image
Because reading is one of the joys of life, and once you begin, you can't stop, and you've got so many stories… — Benedict Cumberbatch Copy Share Image
