Analysis Quote by Willa Cather

Nothing can injure a man's writing if he's a first-rate writer. If a man is not a first-rate writer, there's not anything can help…

— William Faulkner

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

“Nothing is more painful to me than the disdain with which people treat second-rate authors, as if there were room only for the first-raters.”

— Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

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

— Sarah Waters

The difficulty of writing a second novel is directly proportional to how successful the first novel was, it seems.

— Khaled Hosseini

The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what is written.

— Elizabeth Bowen

Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.

— G. H. Hardy

A writer is obviously at his most natural and relaxed when he writes in the first person. Writing is a personal transaction between two…

— William Zinsser

I am reading Sienkiewicz. What tormenting reading. What a powerful genius! And there never was such a first-rate writer of the second-rate class.

— Witold Gombrowicz

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

When the writer has done his best, he then should proceed to do his second best.

— Edward Abbey