Duty Quote by Joseph Brodsky

A writer is a tool of the language rather than the other way around.

— Joseph Brodsky

Writers who open up horizons for other people are performing a function every bit as important as a consciously politicized writer.

— Wole Soyinka

A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.

— Susan Sontag

Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human condition. Writers are either polluters or part of the cleanup.

— Mary Pipher

I think, for any writer, when you write, you just write.

— David Farr

The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.

— E. L. Doctorow

Writing means being a fascinated slave to current events.

— Anonymous

Writing has power, but its power has no vector. Writers can stir the mind, but they can't direct it. Time changes things, God changes…

— Isaac Bashevis Singer

A writer always writes.

— Don Roff

Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he acontemplative purely, he would not write.

— Elizabeth Bowen

I think writers are not only writers, they are also citizens.

— Chinua Achebe

I think writers, by nature, are more observers instead of participators.

— Ian Hunter