Bierce Writer Quotes & Sayings

A popular writer writes about what people think. A wise writer offers them something to think about. — Ambrose Bierce

Scribbler, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one's own. — Ambrose Bierce

ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination ... — Ambrose Bierce

REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words. — Ambrose Bierce

OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer ... — Ambrose Bierce

SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks. — Ambrose Bierce

If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, as he went to bed, "she is lost. But I shall save her."
He put out his lamp and felt a need to insult Erik in the dark. Thrice over, he shouted:
"Humbug! ... Humbug! ... Humbug! — Gaston Leroux

USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion. — Ambrose Bierce

Trust your heart, trust your story. — Neil Gaiman

I fear that I am losing my mind. But really, it would not be such a precious thing to lose, as it only causes me pain. — L.A. Meyer

Social historians of the future no doubt will be amused by the fact that we late-twentieth-century Americans found it acceptable to discuss publicly in detail the most intimate aspects of personal life, while maintaining an almost prudish reserve concerning the political significance of family life. — Mary Ann Glendon

The bold and discerning writer who, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense has no following and is tartly reminded that 'it isn't in the dictionary' - although down to the time of the first lexicographer no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary. — Ambrose Bierce

He had read endless books, he had digested them, pondered over them. Day by day, year after year, he had turned over all the problems of human beings. Yet there were all sorts of simple things he didn't know how to do: he couldn't even walk into an inn and sit down at a table. — Georges Simenon

More than ten million women march to work every morning side by side with the men. Steadily the importance of women is gaining notonly in the routine tasks of industry but in executive responsibility. I include also the woman who stays at home as the guardian of the welfare of the family. She is a partner in the job and wages. Women constitute a part of our industrial achievement. — Herbert Hoover

DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead - a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia. — Ambrose Bierce

The dream had come again, like the sun after a storm. It was the same dream that had come many times before, battering down the doors of my mind night after night since i was a child. it was the sort of dreams all girls dream, i suppose- a dream of mysterious worlds and hidden doorways, of leaves that breathe and make music when they are rustled in the wind, and river that bubbles and froth with secrets. — Kailin Gow

GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone. — Ambrose Bierce

Felicity Shaw," she says and sticks out a hand. Her suit is paler today but no less severe. "You look like you're feeling a little bit better, Detective." "Thank you," I say. "Fresh air and exercise. Drugs and doctors. All that." She doesn't smile. I think Swann would have smiled at that. Which I hope makes me funny and not Swann a woman with a terrible sense of humor. Could go either way on that one, though. — Jonathan Wood

ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection. — Ambrose Bierce

the only reason to kick a man like him out of bed would be to fuck him on the floor. — K. Bromberg

PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read. — Ambrose Bierce