Affinity Quote by Jayne Anne Phillips

In times when religious or political faith or hope predominates, the writer functions totally in unison with society, and expresses society's feelings, beliefs, and…

— Juan Goytisolo

The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect…

— Goldwin Smith

The writer cannot abandon himself simply to inspiration, and feign innocence vis a vis language, because language is never innocent.

— Juan Goytisolo

The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that, perhaps, is what…

— Leo Rosten

“Literature is communication. Communication requires loyalty. A rigorous morality results from complicity in the knowledge of Evil, which is the basis of intense communication.”

— Georges Bataille

“writers are like gods in their own little universes, constantly weaving lives, worlds, people, relationships and conflicts into existence.”

— Yefon Isabelle

“all writers, given adequate technique—technique that communicates—can stir our interest in their special subject matter, since at heart all fiction treats, directly or indirectly,…

— John Gardner

“The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, and it smells good. Writing is mere writing,…

— Annie Dillard

The writer doesn’t write for the reader. He doesn’t write for himself, either. He writes to serve…something. Somethingness. The somethingness that is sheltered by…

— Joy Williams

I think in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion, dislike, displeasure, resentment, fault-finding, imagination, passionate remonstrance,…

— Edna Ferber

“Rather, in discussions of books we should cast characters not in terms of stable character traits, but in terms of internal states, feelings, intentions,…

— Peter H. Johnston

“the translator says that a sentence is born into this world neither good nor bad, and that to establish its character is a question…

— Rachel Cusk