Discretion Quote by Philip Roth

Discretion is not the better part of biography.

— Lytton Strachey

If a writer is so cautious that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never be able to write anything that…

— Thomas Merton

If a young writer can refrain from writing, he shouldn’t hesitate to do so.

— Andre Gide

I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.

— John Irving

I don't think you can write according to a set of rules and laws; every writer is so different.

— Kiran Desai

It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.

— Sinclair Lewis

But it is not at all unthinkable for anyone to tell a writer how to write. It comes with the territory.

— Ernest Lehman

I avoided writers very carefully because they can perpetuate trouble as no one else can.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

You have to be compelled to write. If you’re not, nothing else that you do matters.

— Rick Riordan

Like most novelists, I like to do exactly the opposite of what I'm told. It's in my nature as a novelist. Novelists can't trust…

— Haruki Murakami

And must I, perchance, like careful writers, guard myself against the conclusions of my readers?

— Djuna Barnes