American Quote by Edmund White

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

— Dashiell Hammett

If I had been brought up in America, I think I would still have had the same sort of job as a writer.

— Justin Cartwright

I had no ambition to be a writer because the books I read were too good, my standards were too high.

— Haruki Murakami

When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature.

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

George P. A. Healy; "I knew no one in France, I was utterly ignorant of the language, I did not know what I should…

— David McCullough

I'm definitely more influenced by European writers than I am by American writers, there's no doubt about that.

— Anne Rice

When I wrote about the French Revolution, I didn't choose to write about aristocrats; I chose characters who began their lives in provincial obscurity.

— Hilary Mantel

For someone like me and my generation, you had to speak French to be sophisticated, you had to be lighter-skinned.

— Rabih Alameddine

Evidently, there are many great American writers. But sometimes it can feel as though American fiction is dominated by relatively linear narrative form, with…

— Katie Kitamura

My father was a frustrated writer. I think he wanted to write the great American novel.

— Anne Waldman

“I thought serious writers smoked like French imports or something.”

— Jake Irons

I'd always been really intimidated by prose writing.

— David Rees