Capacity Quote by John Cheever

“A writer lives, at least, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies…

— William Sansom

A writer lives, at best, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies…

— William Sansom

“Quite often, too, a writer who has for a time been believed to possess a great store of ordinarily profound ideas, and who is…

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“The inexperienced reader wants the essentially familiar combined with superficial novelty. Each story must have a slightly new setting or twist or "gimmick," though…

— Laurence Perrine

“he spoke of what he called the "inner history of weakness, of what disappoints us in leaders, the timidity of thought, the hesitancy and…

— Ronald Steel

“I find it very liberating—as a writer—to test the limits of my imagination; and then to propel myself beyond them!”

— Jason W. Blair

“Anyone longing to become a writer, for even a few moments of his life, will vainly weave fantastic events unless he has experienced that…

— Ivan Klima

The more imagination the reader has ... the more he will do for himself. He will, at a mere hint from the author, flood…

— C. S. Lewis

“Perhaps the greatest illusion a writer ever creates is that his work is achieved without great effort or sacrifice. ”

— David Alejandro Fearnhead

“It is the importance of this quality of generosity in fiction that requires a measure of childishness in the writer. People who have strong…

— John Gardner

A great writer has a high respect for values. His essential function is to raise life to the dignity of thought, and this he…

— Andre Maurois

a novelist's chief desire is to be as unconscious as possible. He has to induce in himself a state of perpetual lethargy. He wants…

— Virginia Woolf