Books Quote by Lynne Tillman

What's not realized about good novelists is that they're as competitive as good athletes. They study each other - where the other person is…

— Norman Mailer

Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute…

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Women excel more in literary judgment than in literary production,--they are better critics than authors.

— Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

“...a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend…

— E. B. White

There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to…

— Edwin Percy Whipple

Good style happens in one of two ways: the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to death to…

— Haruki Murakami

Part of being a writer is knowing when what you write is really bad.

— Reif Larsen

When you write something it has to hit the level that you accept as being good.

— Will Champion

“What makes a writer successful is not money or fame (though both are nice) ... it's that in being true to her or himself,…

— Miyoko Hikiji

Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.

— Raymond Carver

The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for…

— Ray Bradbury