Writers Quotes

My own experience is that once a story has been written one has to cross out the beginning and the ...

Begin with another's to end with your own.

The truth is that James, like many other great writers and artists, had chosen his own loyalties and...

...The question is, why do you think you can't be a writer?""To be a writer, you need readers.""I'm ...

I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.

All we have is compassion and stories.

Once I was asked be a seatmate on a trans-Pacific flight....what instruction he should give his fift...

I mostly want to remind her of the recipes of healing, and give her my own made-on-the spot remedy f...

One man is as good as another until he has written a book.

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying it

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself.", September 14, 1958)

People who understand everything get no stories.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their...

I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.

The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good lit...

He possessed the logic of all good intentions and a knowledge of all the tricks of his trade, and ye...

I have cultivated my hysteria with joy and terror.

Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising,...

What is your advice to young writers?” “Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes.

There was nothing glorious about the life of a drinker or the life of a writer.

don’t be like so many writers,don’t be like so many thousands ofpeople who call themselves writers,d...

unless it comes out ofyour soul like a rocket,unless being still woulddrive you to madness orsuicide...

great writers are indecent peoplethey live unfairlysaving the best part for paper.good human beings ...

The centuries are sprinkled with rare magicwith divine creatureswho help us get past the common and ...

There is a problem with writers. If what a writer wrote was published and sold many, many copies, th...

I have tried lately to read Shakespeare and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.

Writers cannot choose their own mood: with them it is not always hide-tide, nor --thank Heaven!--alw...

The manager of my line told me, You never put anything down except to be read. Every word ever writt...

Many writers, especially male ones, have told us that it is the decease of the father which opens th...

Every article and review and book that I have ever published has constituted an appeal to the person...

[EM] Forster was the only living writer whom he would have described as his master. In other people’...

Write, live what happens; Life is too sacred for invention – though we may lie about it sometimes, t...

There are two kinds of writers - the great ones who can give you truths and the lesser ones who ca...

In keeping with my family's affection for doomed product lines and hexed formats, we purchased a Bet...

Actually, writers have no business writing about their own works. They either wax conceited, saying ...

Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.

As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers, so those with an irrational fear ...

Authors, he thought. Even the sane ones are nuts.

Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.

Writers should be read - but neither seen nor heard.

We can’t worry about meaning. Ari proposed to us that meaning is a consumer item. Some people manufa...

[I]f the writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart the rea...

To say that a writer's hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement-it's like saying the Titanic ...

I added 'writers' to my list of people not to trust. They make everything up.

Only one-tenth of what you write will make it into your manuscript, but when you knock on that tenth...

And grade every simile and metaphor from one star to five, and remove any threes or below. It hurts ...

A memorandum is written to protect the writer - not to inform his reader.

It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular ex...

She had her image… and anything added to that would be mere verse-making. Something might come of it...

…After all, it isn't really difficult to write books. Especially if you either write a rotten story ...

My favourite piece of information is that Branwell Brontë, brother of Emily and Charlotte, died stan...

Children's reading and children's thinking are the rock-bottom base upon which this country will ris...

Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man wr...

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are...

How can I know what I think till I see what I say?

A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to acc...

A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed in keeping rabbits.

In any really good subject one has only to probe deep enough to come to tears.

I think with my right hand.

Gay life is this object out there that’s waiting to be written about. A lot of people think we’ve ex...

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a ...

A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.

[I]t is the writer's duty to write fiction which promotes virtue, the good, the beautiful, and above...

How become a writer? Naturally.

Should a writer have a social purpose? Any honest writer is bound to become a critic of the society ...

Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad ...

The fluid boundary between individuals and types is a true concern of the real writer.

Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.

I think there are writers who take a quieter approach to their work — one that is just about respect...

Lindsay [Doran] goes round the table and introduces everyone -- making it clear that I am present in...

Dostoevsky was made by being sent to Siberia. Writers are forged in injustice as a sword is forged.

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shockproof shit detector. This is the write...

The writer must write what he has to say not speak it.

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are f...

A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.

As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.

World War I was the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth...

His (the writer's) standard of fidelity to the truth should be so high that his invention out of hi...

Mice: But reading all the good writers might discourage you.Y.C.: Then you ought to be discouraged.

We do need to bring to our writing, over and over again, all the abundance we possess. To be able, t...

The journey took about a week each way, and each day had my parents both in its grip. Riding behind ...

Literature is language charged with meaning

When you start searching for ‘pure elements’ in literature you will find that literature has been cr...

Writers aren't exactly people.... They're a whole bunch of people trying to be one person.

Writers aren't exactly people they're a whole lot of people trying to be one person.

Understand now, I'm purely a fiction writer and do not profess to be an earnest student of political...

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

There’s a writer for you,” he said. “Knows everything and at the same time he knows nothing.” [narra...

Writers make everybody nervous but we terrify Silly Service workers. Our apartments always look like...

All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. It's horrible to feel felonious every second of...

The best fame is a writer's fame. It's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough to...

I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriter...

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.", July 5, 1922]

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insa

I write whenever it suits me. During a creative period I write every day a novel should not be inter...

An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the l...

Just because we're fictional characters doesn't mean you can pick us up and move us anywhere you wan...