Books Quote by Julia Child

I feel that these stories are being written to articulate certain confusions and disappointments, and I do mean to shake up the reader, and…

— Ann Beattie

I think every writer lives for the thought that there will be a moment when somebody reads something on the page and says, "Yes!"

— Marianne Williamson

In fact, with each of my novels I have been surprised by something that happens that I had not thought of beforehand.

— Julie Klassen

If there is an audience out there for me, I want them to be surprised when the next book comes out.

— Stewart O'Nan

I was aware that there is an expectation that writers inevitably falter at this stage, that they fail to live up to the promise…

— David Guterson

It is in their 'good' characters that novelists make, unawares, the most shocking self- revelations.

— C. S. Lewis

Every author dreams of the kind of attention that 'Beautiful Children' has received in the press. Obviously, it's a shock whenever it happens. So…

— Charles Bock

Every writer secretly hopes that what he or she has written will endure.

— Jonathan Coleman

There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.

— Samuel Johnson

If the novelist isn't surprised by where his book ends up, he or she probably hasn't written anything worth remembering.

— Tom Robbins

Thank God for novelists. Thank God there are people willing to write everything down. Otherwise, so much would be forgotten.

— Kurt Vonnegut

A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.

— Bernard Malamud