"Many a young person tells me he wants……" — Alex Haley
"Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I always encourage such people, but I also explain that there's a big difference between being a writer and writing. In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame, not the long hours alone at the typewriter. You've got to want to write, I say to them, not want to be a writer. The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor-paying affair. For every writer kissed by fortune, there are thousands more whose longing is never requited. Even those who succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty. I did."
—
Alex Haley
★
★
★
★
★
0.0 avg (0 ratings)
38 Quotes by Alex Haley
Alex Haley has 38 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
-
When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand.
-
Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal…
-
Beginning writers must appreciate the prerequisites if they hope to become writers. You pay your dues - which takes years.
-
Every death is like the burning of a library.
-
When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth.
-
In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.
-
I look at my books the way parents look at their children. The fact that one becomes more successful than…
-
Tying the little folks with the older folks is a great and powerful tool to preserve and to protect the…
-
You don't spend twenty years of your life in the service and not have a warm, nostalgic feeling left in…
-
I wasn't going to be one of those people who died wondering what if? I would keep putting my dreams…
-
I think one of the most fascinating things you can do after you learn about your own people is to…
-
Early in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days upriver from the coast of The Gambia,…
See all 38 quotes by Alex Haley »
More Affair Quotes
This quote is filed under Affair Quotes,
one of 1,281 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
-
The more dubious and uncertain an instrument violence has become in international relations, the more it has gained in reputation…
— Hannah Arendt
-
The proportion between the velocity with which men or animals move, and the weights they carry, is a matter of…
— Charles Babbage
-
The humanitarian would, of course, have us meddle in foreign affairs as part of his program of world service.
— Irving Babbitt
-
Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.
— HonorÈ De Balzac
-
I wanted to be a neurologist. That seemed to be the most difficult, most intriguing, and the most important aspect…
— Roger Bannister
-
Do not measure your loss by itself; if you do, it will seem intolerable; but if you will take all…
— Saint Basil
-
Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one…
— Arnold Bennett
-
I started my music career at 18 and for a long while I let other people handle my affairs.
— Sophie Ellis Bextor
-
Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
— Ambrose Bierce
-
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
— Ambrose Bierce
-
A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
— Ambrose Bierce
-
Alas for the affairs of men! When they are fortunate you might compare them to a shadow; and if they…
— Aeschylus
See all 1,281 Affair Quotes »
