Able Quote by Vivian Gornick

Nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile... a stain upon the silence.

— Samuel Beckett

What a writer brought to a book didn't matter as much as what the reader contributed.

— Lisa Morton

“The greatness of a writer has nothing to do with subject matter itself, only with how much the subject matter touches the author.”

— Boris Pasternak

I think what matters most in literary work is the context, not the text.

— Andrea Hirata

It is the story that matters not just the ending.

— Paul Lockhart

A story only matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change.

— Neil Gaiman

The writer's job is not to judge, but to seek to understand.

— Ernest Hemingway

It is less the business of the novelist to tell us what happened than to show how it happened.

— V. S. Pritchett

Only two things happen to writers when they die: Either their work survives, or it becomes forgotten.

— Stephen King

I don’t see why it matters what is written. Not when it’s about people. It can always be crossed out.

— Anonymous

What a writer wants to do is not what he does.

— Jorge Luis Borges

“It’s not publishing that matters; it’s not writing that matters. What matters is feeling alive while writing, washing dishes, driving, etc. Writing just gives…

— Barbara Robinette Moss