Quotes & Sayings About Authors

(Authors Publish asked WHY DO YOU WRITE?) "Voices...won't...stop...talking. When I drive the car, walk the dog, stir the soup--voices make me write down what they say and shape a world to catch the words. — Delaney Green

Have you come to terms with what's going to happen between us? — N.D. Jones

Professed authors who overestimate their vocation are too full of themselves to be agreeable companions. The demands of their egotism are inveterate. — Henry Theodore Tuckerman

Our Voice is our most powerful tool against these evil people who prey on the innocent, we should never be silent and let them continue to harm people. By being silent we are telling them it is "Okay to continue". I firmly believe if you choose to stand with those who wish to keep the victim silent you are yourself guilty of a crime against humanity
- Misty Griffin — Misty Griffin

Writing about Africa by Africans has been part of my literary apprenticeship, standing alongside works by authors such as Joseph Conrad, Joyce Cary and Graham Greene as influences. — Giles Foden

I've been told by a few people at conferences I have a rather academic approach to the subject matter that makes it easy for people to ask questions. I think some genre writers feel the need to "sell" or defend what they do, and so when a door opens to discuss their genre, regardless of what that genre is, they tend to get almost pushy. I'm comfortable with what I write. It is part of who I am. I don't really need to sell it. But if I'm asked, I'll explain it. — Julie Ann Dawson

I've had a lot of very positive feedback about those stories, and seem to have struck upon something that most people feel. I can also tap dance, and don't know many other authors who can. — Paul Kane

Although erotica authors are being targeted, this is an issue that should concern all indie authors. It affects indies disproportionately because indies are the ones pushing the boundaries of fiction. Indies are the ones out there publishing without the (fading) protective patina of a "traditional publisher" to lend them legitimacy. We indies only have each other. — Mark Coker

An idea is a gift, a finished project is turning that gift into a book by making yourself write even when you don't want to. There is no such thing as a block of time to write. You have to carve time from a busy day. Elaine L. Orr — Elaine Orr

Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.
Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories - each time in a new disguise - maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I want to offer a word of encouragement to authors: You have to feel called to the message of your book enough that you want people to get that message. When you get to that place, your passion goes through the roof, and then the other stuff happens. — Jud Wilhite

A masterly analysis of how political interests, economic circumstances, development strategies, and local history have shaped what are surprisingly different versions of the welfare state across the developing world. The authors combine fine-grained country analyses with intelligent use of data, and explain and extend the theory and literature on the modern welfare state. The book is both scholarly and readable. — Nancy Birdsall

Isn't it funny that what the Japanese authors consider their first page is our happily-ever-after last one? When you think about it, it's not a bad way to approach life. What appears to be an ending--heartbreaking wounds that you can and cannot see--may just be a beginning, a start of a brand-new adventure. — Justina Chen

People approach writers, assuming we pull a perfect text out of our nose each time (well spelled). Spelling is the least of it. — Sara Levine

There are no authors in my genre. No one is doing what I do. — Nicholas Sparks

Said one of the wise: the wrath of you did not do evil in you, "Go for it authors of" you, anger exposes quality of human beings — Undefined

Like most authors, I'm a raging egomaniac. I know that about myself. And I know that, if I had internet access, I would waste countless hours looking up things about myself, writing fake posts about how great I am and arguing with people who don't like my work. It saves me a lot of time and frustration to just stay out of the loop. — Bentley Little

The homeless embodied the final stage in a decline your life could have tended toward. You did not take them for victims, but for authors of their own lives. — Edouard Leve

Writers are nothing more than borderline schizophrenics who are able to control the voices. — Jennifer Salaiz

As with many Southern Writers, I believe that the special quality of the land itself indelibly shapes the people who dwell upon it. — Willie Morris

Without curiosity, all doors remain closed! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The true history of the world must always be the history of the few; and as we measure the Himalaya by the height of Mount Everest, we must take the true measure of India from the poets of the Veda, the sages of the Upanishads, the founders of the Vedanta and Sankhya philosophies, and the authors of the oldest law-books, and not from the millions who are born and die in their villages, and who have never for one moment been roused out of their drowsy dream of life. — Friedrich Max Muller

If I were only allowed to read or enjoy art or listen to music made by people whose opinions and beliefs were the same as mine, I think the world would be a pretty dismal sort of a place ... Most, probably all, human beings get to do awful things and believe things that other human beings think they should be burned for believing, and they get to do and believe wonderful things too, and artists, writers, musicians, creators, actors, are nothing if not human beings. — Neil Gaiman

Time (again, Time) like the soul, wears many faces, many bodies and climates and attitudes. The past is one face, the present a second and the future yet another. — Aberjhani

Let us banish fear. We have been in this mental state for three centuries. I am a radical. I am ready to act, if I can find brave men to help me. — Carter G. Woodson

We are all works in progress, the authors of our own lives. — Caroline James

People always try to make self-published authors feel insignificant. I have more respect for self-published authors, because I know the adversity they faced. They didn't just write a manuscript, query letter, and blam book deal. These authors had to do it the difficult way. There is no publisher, or agents, investing time, and money into making their book. Just the indie author's manuscript, own currency, and persistence. — Mary Sage Nguyen

The two stared together into a future that held as much pain as promise, as much sorrow as sunshine... — Ana Chapman

So long as the mental and moral instruction of man is left solely in the hands of hired servants of the public
let them be teachers of religion, professors of colleges, authors of books, or editors of journals or periodical publications, dependent upon their literary incomes for their daily bread, so long shall we hear but half the truth; and well if we hear so much. Our teachers, political, scientific, moral, or religious; our writers, grave or gay, are compelled to administer to our prejudices and to perpetuate our ignorance. — Frances Wright

Authors are supernatural beings. They exist in the world, also in worlds they create, and in the worlds of other authors they read. — Lani Brown

A Path Appears is an insightful book focused on how individuals can contribute to positive change and the remarkable people behind the organizations that make it happen. The authors' desire to motivate people to support good causes, learn about the situation in other countries, and find the best way to help their fellow men and women is inspiring. — Angelina Jolie

It's a dreadfully long monster of a book, and I certainly won't have time to read it, but I'm giving it a thorough skimming. The authors are utterly incompetent - no sense of style or structure at all. It starts out as a detective story, switches to science-fiction, then goes off into the supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the time sequence is all out of order in a very pretentious imitation of Faulkner and Joyce. Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex scenes, thrown in just to make it sell, I'm sure, and the authors - whom I've never heard of - have the supreme bad taste to introduce real political figures into this mishmash and pretend to be exposing a real conspiracy. You can be sure I won't waste time reading such rubbish. — Robert Shea

Gregory is a good boy, though all the Latin he has learned, all the sonorous periods of the great authors, have rolled through his head and out again, like stones. Still, you think of Thomas More's boy: offspring of a scholar all Europe admired, and poor young John can barely stumble through his Pater Noster. Gregory is a fine archer, a fine horseman, a shining star in the tilt yard, and his manners cannot be faulted. He speaks reverently to his superiors, not scuffling his feet or standing on one leg, and he is mild and polite with those below him. He knows how to bow to foreign diplomats in the manner of their own countries, sits at table without fidgeting or feeding spaniels, can neatly carve and joint any fowl if requested to serve his elders. He doesn't slouch around with his jacket off one shoulder, or look in windows to admire himself, or stare around in church, or interrupt old men, or finish their stories for them. If anyone sneezes, he says, 'Christ help you! — Hilary Mantel

Agents are deal makers, and they're really, really good at making deals. But they're also exceptionally helpful after the deal is made - agents act as a good intermediary between authors and publishers whenever disagreements come up. — John Romaniello

The latest authors, like the most ancient, strove to subordinate the phenomena of nature to the laws of mathematics. — Isaac Newton

The night was so balmy that breathing ceased to be a habitual sensation, becoming much closer to something like the gaseous ingestion of a mango, the velvet caress of a hand or the soft skin of a fresh peach. Sleeping, lying down or sitting up, was, on that night, a divine human penitence, a miracle unexpected and unrealized, intuitive and peaceful in a unique opportunity. — Ondjaki

The best way of writing sex scenes is to do the first draft, orgasm, and then start editing. You can be objective post-orgasm. — Christos Tsiolkas

Of Books and Scribes there are no end:
This Plague--and who can doubt it?
Dismays me so, I've sadly penned
Another book about it. — Robert W. Service

Hone your writing skills as if they were your finest weapons of war. For in the literary arena, your pen will truly be your sword. — Max Hawthorne

No one will write books once they reach heaven, but there is an excellent library, containing all the books written up to date, including all the lost books and the ones that the authors burned when they came back from the last publisher. — Evelyn Waugh

Focus in on the genre you want to write, and read books in that genre. A LOT of books by a variety of authors. And read with questions in your mind. — Nicholas Sparks

Life is a journey, not a destination. (Unk) — G. Bernard Ray

The corridor didn't seem long enough to contain so much blackness.

'Passing Through Peacehaven — Ramsey Campbell

SHIT, WAS THAT A BIT OF EYEBALL STUCK IN MY CLEAVAGE? — Kristy Berridge

I consider that women who are authors, lawyers, and politicians are monsters. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

A hundred years ago, an average teenager knew countless authors, and, a sex position or two. Today, an average teenager knows countless sex positions, and, an author or two. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Patriarchy is women structuring lifelong decisions around men they haven't met. — Maggie Young

While paying attention to positive and negative feedback is very important, it is not enough. What also matters is acknowledging and responding to this feedback. This is how you nurture your relationship with your audience. — Cendrine Marrouat

Whenever people ask me, "How are your books doing?" or, "How is your book doing?" I just say, "It's okay." I mean, what am I supposed to say? I'm a writer; that means I write because I need to write, because that's how I breathe and that's how I bleed. I'm not an author; I'm a writer. Even when I don't want to write; I can't stop! So, how are my books doing? The hell I know! The moment after I publish one book, I'm writing another one! I don't know how my books are doing! I just know that I'm writing them! I'm a writer, I'm a writer. I'm not an author. — C. JoyBell C.

Authors are the vanguard in the march of mind, the intellectual backwoodsmen, reclaiming from the idle wilderness new territories for the thought and activity of their happier brethren. — Thomas Carlyle

A hammer made of deadlines is the surest tool for crushing writer's block. — Ryan Lilly

None save great men have been the authors of great heresies. — Saint Augustine

Not all marketing people are writers, but all writers must learn to be marketers. — Joanne Kraft

The campaign of anti-Islamic slander was so successful that to this day some textbooks in European and American schools refer to Muhammad as having epilepsy, the Qur'an as being copied from Bible, Muslim armies forcing conversions on people (by the sword), and Islam as being against science and learning. All of these are quite untrue, and enlightened Western authors from Arnold Toynbee and Bertrand Russell to Yvonne Haddad and John Esposito have been dispelling these myths on book after book for decades; nevertheless, the message hasn't reached the masses, who still believe numerous myths concerning Islam. — Yahiya Emerick

How many books do you have here?" Corliss asked. "Two million, one hundred thousand, and eleven," the librarian said proudly, but Corliss was frightened. What happens to the world when that many books go unread? And what happens to the unread authors of those unread books? — Sherman Alexie

Books, like men their authors, have no more than one way of coming into the world, but there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return no more. — Jonathan Swift

To be liberated from the stigma of blackness by embracing it is to cease, forever, one's interior argument and collaboration with the authors of one's degradation. It abruptly reduces the white enemy to a contest merely physical, which he can win only physically. — James Baldwin

That woman must have been a husky in a previous life. — Mary Papas

There are so many good authors; there's no shortage of them. — Jeanne Calment

My advice to would-be young authors is to read a lot, write a lot, and not worry about creating a finished product. Keeping a journal is not a bad idea either. — Kevin Henkes

If any writer in this country has collected as fine and passionate a group of readers as I have, they're fortunate and lucky beyond anyone's imagination. It remains a shock to me that I've had a successful writing career. Not someone like me; Lord, there were too many forces working against me, too many dark currents pushing against me, but it somehow worked. Though I wish I'd written a lot more, been bolder with my talent, more forgiving of my weaknesses, I've managed to draw a magic audience into my circle. They come to my signings to tell me stories, their stories. The ones that have hurt them and made their nights long and their lives harder. — Pat Conroy

How do I find joy in my homeschool journey?
The answer is quite simple. I accept lots of God's grace. Grace to make mistakes. Grace to take a nap when I am exhausted. Grace to not feel guilty. Without His abundant provision of grace, I would be depleted, discouraged, and dissatisfied. Instead, I place all my trust in His direction and I embrace my calling as a homeschool mom. His grace has set me free from worry, fear, doubt, and guilt and I am overflowing with joy. Praise God! — Tamara L. Chilver

I don't think I can pick apart how I was influenced by which author. But these were the authors whose books I went back to again and again when I was in high school and college, when I first started trying to write stories. — Martha Wells

We are all an instrument with a special notation to our individual identity. When you incorporate many beautiful notes together, you envelop a harmonious orchestra. — Steven Cuoco

My teeth ache, my gums hurt, and my cat is tearing me apart, wanting you in every way imaginable. Your body. Your magic. Your fire spirit. Your blood. — N.D. Jones

Authors will make far more on those ebooks through direct sales than publishers are offering. There is no incentive for authors to sell those rights to traditional publishers which means, in the fairly short term, publishers run out of material to sell. — Michael A. Stackpole

At lunchtime and in the evening he read aloud to Cuneo while the latter prepared the meals. Cuneo would often request stories by women authors. "Women tell you more about the world. Men only tell you about themselves. — Nina George

Before novels written by women were relegated to their own 'genre,' I was introduced to Jane Smiley by a dear professor who raised my awareness of what female authors were bringing to the table of contemporary fiction. — Emma McLaughlin

The human authors and editors of the Old Testament brought their own experiences and presuppositions to the task of writing. We don't often think about this when we read the Bible. — Adam Hamilton

and the afterglow...
of your gaze...is the only
sweater that I need. — Sanober Khan

To THOSE who want to lift this nation from the dungheap of history, the past does not matter - only the present, the awareness of the deadening rot which surrounds and suffocates us, and what we must do to vanquish it. — F. Sionil Jose

Ursula K. Le Guin urges authors to remember why they do what they do. Her argument is that writing is an form of art rather than a commodity. — Ursula K. Le Guin

If our previous analyses are correct, they all point to the same conclusion, that metaphysical adventures are doomed to fail when their authors substitute the fundamental concepts of any particular science for those of metaphysics. — Etienne Gilson

Why isn't the manuscript ready? Because every book is more work than anyone intended. If authors and editors knew, or acknowledged, how much work was ahead, fewer contracts would be signed. Each book, before the contract, is beautiful to contemplate. By the middle of the writing, the book has become, for the author, a hate object. For the editor, in the middle of editing, it has become a two-ton concrete necklace. However, both author and editor will recover the gleam in their eyes when the work is completed, and see the book as the masterwork it really is. — Samuel S. Vaughan

I've had a dozen novels published and have made far more than a dozen mistakes. Which is why Randy Susan Meyers and I wrote a guidebook to help authors avoid making our mistakes. — M.J. Rose

I believe the Lord has chosen me to spread His word through my words and who am I to question His plans for me? — Cindy Bauer

Some sit and watch the life; some sail to the sea and the life watches them! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not critics to their judgment, too? — Alexander Pope

The objective of stereotypes is not to reflect or represent a reality but to function as a disguise, or mystification, of objective social relations. — Hazel V. Carby

It's one of my biggest memories of my father reading. I had pneumonia, remember, but I was a little better now, and madly caught up in the book, and one thing you know when you're ten is that, no matter what, there's gonna be a happy ending. They can sweat all they want to scare you, the authors, but back of it all you know, you just have no doubt, that in the long run justice is going to win out. — William Goldman

I've got lots of favourite authors, but I would say Nicci French because I look more forward to reading her next new book than any other author. — Sophie Hannah

Teachers're always using that "in your own words." I hate that. Authors knit their sentences tight. It's their job. Why make us unpick them, just to put it back together more shonkily? How're you s'posed to say Kapellmeister if you can't say Kapellmeister? — David Mitchell

What these critics forget is that printing presses in themselves provide no guarantee of an enlightened outcome. People, not machines, made the Renaissance. The printing that takes place in North Korea today, for instance, is nothing more than propaganda for a personality cult. What is important about printing presses is not the mechanism, but the authors. — Jaron Lanier

Paranormal fiction offers authors - and readers - the chance to answer the question, 'What if?' All the different ways that question can be answered make for extremely entertaining reading. — Jeaniene Frost

It doesn't have to be dreads. You can wear an Afro, or braids like you used to. There's a lot you can do with natural hair — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Melissa Foster is a wonderful connector of readers and books, a friend of authors, and a tireless advocate for women. She is the real deal. — Jennie Shortridge

I have no problem selling ebooks for authors directly as an agent, but partnering with them is another matter. — Robert Gottlieb

George dutifully dusted the marks from the expensive rug and retired to the kitchen to await a grave and disapproving Collins, wishing with all of his boyish heart that he had applied for the stables. Cleaning stalls had to be beneficial exercise, and surely one must become accustomed to the smells...eventually. — Sarah Brazytis

Education does not define you as a "HUMAN BEING" your actions does. — Henry Johnson Jr

Publishing should be a collaboration between authors and their smartest readers - and at some point the distinction should become meaningless, — Nick Denton

A lot of powerful people in Washington may think it's a crazy-leftist-fringe position to think the intellectual authors of a torture regime should be investigated and prosecuted. — John Cusack

My fingers burn behind the keys of my typewriter, the lettering fading with every thoughtful strike. The many words I write I dare not stall; my mind perpetually alert for my magnum opus call. — A.K. Kuykendall

For almost half a century, Fermilab has occupied center stage as physicists have sought to understand the fundamental structure of the universe. The lab deserves a good history, and I'm happy to say that in this book it has one. The authors present a compelling, nuanced, and richly detailed account of the place from its beginnings to the present. — James Trefil

Book writing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Anyone who decides to write a book must expect to invest a lot of time and effort without any guarantee of success. Books do not write themselves and they do not sell themselves. Authors write and promote their books. — Dan Poynter

Authors and artists are still afraid of breaking away as far as [William Burroughs] did ... And he did it in the 50s! — Yony Leyser

DRAMA: Be careful about being baited into the personal battles and confusion of others. If you want to help someone out emotionally, be certain he or she has made a commitment to the sacrifice before you intervene for his or her success. If you don't, you're likely to be drained of all your healthy energy with his or her selfish petty, pitiful pretending and negotiating. Be encouraged but more importantly if you can't make it better, whatever you do don't make it worse, for them and especially yourself — Kerry E. Wagner

As the moon, though darkened with spots, gives us a much greater light than the stars that sewn all-luminous, so do the Scriptures afford more light than the brightest human authors. In them the ignorant may learn all requisite knowledge, and the most knowing may learn to discern their ignorance. — Robert Boyle

When I hear artists or authors making fun of businessmen, I think of a regiment in which the band makes fun of the cooks. — H.L. Mencken

those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them; the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, — Plato

Why do people always expect authors to answer questions? I am an author because I want to ask questions. If I had answers, I'd be a politician. — Eugene Ionesco