Academic Quote by Sarah Waters

I knew I'd always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, 'Well, I'd rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one'.

— Sarah Waters

The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in…

— Willa Cather

“I sometimes marvel that a third-rate writer like me has been able to palm himself off as a second-rate writer.”

— John Collier

I don't necessarily self-identify as a writer, 'cause it implies a certain level of intelligence.

— Michael Ian Black

I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.

— A. S. Byatt

I have an English literature degree. I wanted to be the next great American novelist from a very early age, but I put it…

— Daniel Suarez

In actual fact, I have been an academic - a college and university teacher and scholar - for much of the last 45 years,…

— Shirley Geok-lin Lim

I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.

— Wole Soyinka

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

— David Morrell

The world may be full of fourth-rate writers but it's also full of fourth-rate readers.

— Anonymous

I like to think of myself as an unmediated novelist - or perhaps a national novelist.

— E. L. Doctorow

The less conscious one is of being a writer, the better the writing.

— Pico Iyer