Authors Writing Quotes & Sayings

Most people think that making a living from books is fun or joyful, but there's much more to it than what the eyes can see, and I wish I had more time for more profitable and also joyful activities. — Robin Sacredfire

Well, let me try again,' he said. 'If it be true, and no doubt it is, that the proper study of mankind is man, it is also true that man is best studied in the books that he has written about himself; and all books, whatever their subject matter, are in essence autobiographical... Wherefore, it is clear - or is it? - that writers of books are what I have called them, the most fascinating people in the world. — Peter Ruber

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

Writing is something you Do and not discuss. Talk is cheap, wishes are free and a fool is included with every purchase. So spend your time wisely. — Jaime Reed

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 like to think that Henry James said his classic line, "A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost," while looking for his glasses, and that they were on top of his head. — Anne Lamott

The writer has little control over personal temperament, none over historical moment, and is only partly in charge of his or her own aesthetic. — Julian Barnes

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

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though. — J.D. Salinger

Just keep writing, and try to finish that novel. Remember, all authors started exactly where you are right now; the only difference between a published author and a non-published one is that the published author never stopped writing. — Julie Kagawa

The closer one gets to the speed of light, the slower time travels. The exact thing is true when completing a book. — Daniel Ionson

I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen. — Louisa May Alcott

There's a long-standing (50 year old) flame war within the field over whether it's "sci-fi" or "SF".SF has traditionally been looked down on by the literary establishment because, to be honest, much early SF was execrably badly written - but these days the significance of the pigeon hole is fading; we have serious mainstream authors writing stuff that is I-can't-believe-it's-not-SF, and SF authors breaking into the mainstream. If you view them as tags that point to shelves in bricks-and-mortar bookshops, how long are these genre categories going to survive in the age of the internet? — Charles Stross

This has been done by masters of the trade and Garcia had taken in every stock situation with amazing powers of retention, but he had not put things together right and had used extraordinary discernment in not adding one single touch of originality. — Felipe Alfau

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

We write our personal story as intermittent authors; the narrator is always searching for a unitive point of view. We strive to perceive oneself from a unified perspective, but it is virtually impossible to do so. Human perception of the self is an illusion. We constantly sift through shifting memories. We experience the present under the fragrance cast by the past and under the illusionary aura of the future. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I, too, am deeply concerned with an overarching idea that dramaturgs are now authors ... I am not taking the position that all dramaturgs own copyright, deserve special billing credit, or should receive remuneration akin to that of the playwright. I know from my ears at the Dramatists Guild that almost everyone a writer encounters has suggestions of how to write and rewrite the play or musical to make it work. — Dana Rosemary Scallon

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

I love to talk with children. I try to visit schools but it's hard for me to travel when I'm trying to write. Some authors are able to do both. — Judy Blume

Many adult book authors supplement their income by teaching at the college level. Full-time professors fare well, but pay for adjunct professors is notoriously shabby. Children's book authors have a sweeter deal. We're invited by schools, libraries, law firms, and Fortune 500 companies to share our best writing tips and strategies. — Kate Klise

Emily mostly perceived her habit to write down notes as being one of the ways she could use to preserve moments of life. — Sahara Sanders

The word 'NO' is the best motivation there is for the storyteller in you. — A.K. Kuykendall

When you are falling short in vocabulary to explain the emotion in your story.Than you are writing the right story — Tushar Upreti

All of us are writers reading other people's writing, turning pages or clicking to the next screen with pleasure and admiration. All of us absorb other people's words, feeling like we have gotten to know the authors personally in our own ways, even if just a tiny bit. True, we may also harbor jealousy or resentment, disbelief or disappointment. We may wish we had written those words ourselves or berate ourselves for knowing we never could or sigh with relief that we didn't, but thank goodness someone else has. — Pamela Paul

Those authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct. — Samuel Johnson

Putting thoughts into words is vastly different from putting truth into words. For words are not truth. As ardently as writers sort and select and polish their words, at the end of the day they are still words. They are not, in themselves, truth. However carefully we choose our words, no matter how eloquently we compile and conjoin and convey them, they remain just words, merely signposts that point to the truth, as Eckhart Tolle put it. Just as preachers, politicians, PR spin masters and the media can't create truth by writing or speaking words they say are true, authors can't validate truth by putting it into print. And the rest of us can't know it by simply hearing or reading the words. We can only find our way to truth by following the signposts and ultimately believing. It all comes down to believing, to faith, for there is no proof this side of the big dirt nap. — Lionel Fisher

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

All prizes have a role, if they are run with integrity and with a clear focus on reading and quality writing. I don't think any of them is necessary, but they all play an incredibly important role in building a body of literature, in introducing new authors to new readers, and extending reading. — Kate Mosse

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

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

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

For obvious reasons, the relationship between novelists, the reviewing establishment and critics in general is chronically, and often acutely, edgy. A kind of low-intensity warfare prevails, with outbreaks of savagery. It is partly an ownership issue. Who, other than its creator, is to say what a work of fiction means or is worth? It can take years to write a novel and only a few hours for a critic, or a reviewer rushing for a tight deadline, to trash it. — John Sutherland

One of the least impressive liberties is the liberty to starve. This particular liberty is freely accorded to authors. — Arnold Goodman, Baron Goodman

The books we read in childhood don't exist anymore; they sailed off with the wind, leaving bare skeletons behind. Whoever still has in him the memory and marrow of childhood should rewrite these books as he experienced them. — Bruno Schulz

The way Smith sees it, this kind of approach denotes a certain category of writer: the Micro Manager. Authors fall into one of two primary camps, she explained in her 2009 book of essays, Changing My Mind.691 Macro Planners work out the structure of their novels and then write within that structure. Micro Managers, on the other hand, don't rely on an overarching configuration (don't even conceive of one), but rather home in on each sentence, one by one, and each sentence, as they come to it, becomes the only thing that exists. If there is a spectrum starting with Macro Planners on one end and Micro Managers on the other, Smith would be somewhere to the right of the page. Smith's writing is entirely incremental and cumulative. The grand plan is that there is no grand plan; working things out ahead of time ruins everything, "feels disastrous."She prefers the writing of a novel as a process of discovery. "The thinking goes on on the page," not beforehand. — Sarah Stodola

But the three hundred and sixty-five authors who try to write new fairy tales are very tiresome. They always begin with a little boy or girl who goes out and meets the fairies of polyanthuses and gardenias and apple blossoms: 'Flowers and fruits, and other winged things.' These fairies try to be funny, and fail; or they try to preach, and succeed. — Andrew Lang

We are all the authors of our own fates; but we have gotten so lost in the technicalities of forming letters and stringing words together that we've forgotten what it really means to write. — Cristen Rodgers

A program of active reading and writing might be the hardest form of thinking, but it is also the most organized methodology of self-education. Reading exposes the mind to a world of ideas heretofore unimaginable and encourages the novice learner to write. Reading is a form a joint mediation and writing represents the product of several authors' collective and collaborative minds at work. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The instruction here is not for every kind of writer - not for the writer of nurse books or thrillers or porno or the cheaper sort of sci-fi - though it is true that what holds for the most serious kind of fiction will generally hold for junk fiction as well. (Not everyone is capable of writing junk fiction: It requires an authentic junk mind. Most creative-writing teachers have had the experience of occasionally helping to produce, by accident, a pornographer. The most elegant techniques in the world, filtered through a junk mind, become elegant junk techniques.) — John Gardner

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

The secret to success is no secret. Be honest in your words, be trustworthy and share value. Most people won't tell the difference, but those that do are your readers. — Robin Sacredfire

The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Behind every drama is a good story ... behind every tear is the person who wrote it. — Faye Hall

How....will I ever truly depict you?
You're perfect, my writing isn't. — Sanober Khan

10% of authors earn 75% of the royalties. If you're writing a Romance novel, your odds will be slightly higher at making back your investment. Throw in a few vampires, even better. — J.R. Young

After writing, there is the letting go part. Perfection is a myth; as we all get better by day.
Allow yourself to grow in active practice, release that book to the world, and do better with the next one. — Uma Nnenna

By reading a lot of novels in a variety of genres, and asking questions, it's possible to learn how things are done - the mechanics of writing, so to speak - and which genres and authors excel in various areas. — Nicholas Sparks

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

It's a good thing, right, when an author gets turned on by the dirty scenes they write?! — Martha Sweeney

I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this. — E. Nesbit

Writing is not 'lonely work' but "alone work'; authors are known to be reclusive and like spending time with themselves. — Brie Edison

What's interesting to me is how many vampire/urban fantasy authors are writing young adult series as well, often set in the same world as their adult books, but focused on a younger audience. — Carrie Vaughn

In my imagination, the Editor meditated in a mountain-cave, espoused the rules of grammar, and frowned upon speculative fiction. — Josh Malerman

We need to boost each other to get to the top. It is much more effective than stepping on each other. — Teresa Mummert

All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth. — Michel De Montaigne

True authors don't write for fame or to make a name or money, they write to make impact — Bernard Kelvin Clive

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

Why do I write? Because I like telling stories and I don't like repeating myself (insert chuckle here). — Najeev Raj Nadarajah

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

Writing your book is not the end all of your strategy. It is a powerful catalyst that will push you to the top of your game. You see, something magical happens when you write your book and this is the best place to mention it because a sale happens when your book is complete. You sell yourself on the idea that you are more than you previously believed yourself to be. You get to experience that "I did it" moment where your mind releases these wonderful stimulators that make you feel awesome. You see yourself in a different way and this opens up a greater opportunity for accomplishment, achievement, and success. — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

Writing a song is much like being an author. Yes, we all have tools to write (everyone has a brain I hope!), but that doesn't all of a sudden make us best selling authors. — Ken Hill

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

Not everyone will like what you write but there's a certain group who'll love what you write. Keep WRITING for them. — David Chuka

She would keep playing the role of the winner as long as the audience believed her. — Mary Papas

Writers are like tricksters. Their words lure us to embark on journeys and unlock our emotions. — Ogwo David Emenike

Good characters in fiction are the very devil. Not only because most authors have too little material to make them of, but because we as readers have a strong subconscious wish to find them incredible. — C.S. Lewis

In TIME June 7, 2010
On the sustainability of the publishing industry, in the Chicago Tribune:
"I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea. We live in a literate time, and our children are writing up a storm, often combining letters and numbers ... The future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $175." - 5/26/10 — Garrison Keillor

Writing a complete novel is time consuming, frustrating, nerve wrecking, and most of the time your work is under valued, under appreciated, and taken for granted. So why do authors do it? Because not writing at all, feels far worse. — Carl Henegan

The most difficult thing about writing; is writing the first line. — Amit Kalantri

Words raced thru his mind and his fingers ached to capture them all on paper. — Eveli Acosta

Remember: Bad timing equals great plot twists. — A.L. Mabry

probably the biggest complaint authors have in this brave new world is not sales (or the lack thereof) but the constant promotion that eats so much into precious writing time. — David Gaughran

Most critics write critiques which are by the authors they write critiques about. That would not be so bad, but then most authorswrite works which are by the critics who write critiques about them. — Karl Kraus

To refer even in passing to unpublished or struggling authors and their problems is to put oneself at some risk, so I will say here and now that any unsolicited manuscripts or typescripts sent to me will be destroyed unread. You must make your way yourself. Why you should be so set on the nearly always disappointing profession is a puzzling question. — Kingsley Amis

Authors always carry a means for scribbling and an excuse for pausing, often inopportunely, to record those fleeting sparks of creative fancy that might otherwise vanish like a wisp in the wind if ignored. Writing is a jealous and needy lover. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Don't let the covers fool you. Books, like lives, are wiggling, evolving, living things. They're not bound by pages or authors or schools of thought. They're not born when they're printed; in fact, they only start to live once they're read. So first of all, we thank you, reader. You dignify this work we do, and we're sincerely grateful for your time and attention. — Kelly G. Wilson

One of the notebooks was for musings and pep talks. ... The other notebooks were for writing out the novel the way authors had done for centuries. — Gail Godwin

I hope for what I always hope for as a writer: a critical but kind reader. I think that is what we all hope for. — Christos Tsiolkas

Some build their castles 'mid thunderbolts and fireworks. My worlds take shape in silence. — Richelle E. Goodrich

If it were a rainy day, a drunken vigil, a fit of the spleen, a course of physic, sleepy Sunday, an ill run at dice, a long tailor's bill, a beggar's purse, a factious head, a hot sun, costive diet, want of books, and a just contempt for learning - but for these ... the number of authors and of writing would dwindle away to a degree most woeful to behold. — Jonathan Swift

After a lifetime of hounding authors for advice, I've heard three truths from every mouth: (1) Writing is painful
it's 'fun' only for novices, the very young, and hacks; (2) other than a few instances of luck, good work only comes through revision; (3) the best revisers often have reading habits that stretch back before the current age, which lends them a sense of history and raises their standards for quality. — Mary Karr

For almost a quarter of a century, Teen Ink has been encouraging young people to write - and then has published those pieces. These heartfelt essays and poems explore the issues faced by teenagers today. I applaud their efforts because they not only help young people deal with their own lives but also encourage the budding authors of the next generation. — Anita Silvey

I believe almost every author have gone through the terribly uncomfortable period between the time of shedding the seeds of a story and waiting to see it flourish as a published book, spending hours watering and fertilizing it. This is a dreadful period, frustrating and depressing. — Ama H. Vanniarachchy

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

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

all the words
all the poems
know
my warm, soft spots. — Sanober Khan

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.

I am hard at work on the second draft ... Second draft is really a misnomer as there are a gazillion revisions, large and small, that go into the writing of a book. — Libba Bray

Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small. — Virginia Woolf

The American critic Dale Peck, author of Hatchet Jobs (2004), argues that reviewing finds its true character in critical GBH such as Fischer's [review of Martin Amis's Yellow Dog]. It represents a return to the prehistoric origins of reviewing in Zoilism - a kind of pelting of pretentious literature with dung, lest the writers get above themselves; it is to the novelist what the gown of humiliation was to the Roman politician - a salutary ordeal. Less grandly, bad reviews are fun, so long as you are not the author. There is, it must be admitted, a kind of furtive blood sport pleasure in seeing a novelist suffer. You read on. Whereas most of us stop reading at the first use of the word 'splendid' or 'marvellous' in a review. — John Sutherland

You -have- to love your monster. — Philippa Dowding

Thank God For Writing, As Now I Can Work Until My Last Breath! — Latif Mercado

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

All artists' work is autobiographical. Any writer's work is a map of their psyche. You can really see what their concerns are, what their obsessions are, and what interests them. — Kim Addonizio

Writers, naturally, dream of becoming authors. Authors dream of writing a bestseller. Bestselling authors want to write more bestsellers. And everyone hopes for big prizes. Why? Because we believe in magic. Publisher's Weekly magazine, Dec. 12, 2011 — Amy Hill Hearth

Although my road to writing seems like it may have come easily, there were a few bumps in that road. I didn't get a lot of encouragement from friends, although my family were great supporters. I also had many ... what you would call "mind-boggling" moments, when I would doubt myself and what I was writing. It has been said that we, ourselves, are our own worst critics.
All the hard work had payed off though, and I created a children's book that I am proud of, and an unforgettable little girl that will touch the hearts of many."-Nina Jean Slack — Nina Jean Slack

i am infinitely yearning
brimming
and overflowing
in words

i discover
it's another way
for me
to be in tears. — Sanober Khan