Quotes & Sayings About Books Authors

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

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 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

When I was publishing my first books, the previous generation of authors was fading away, so I was welcomed because I was a new author. — Orhan Pamuk

I read reviews and consider myself pretty 'plugged in' to the literary cosmos, yet one of the things I love best about book-touring is the opportunity to compare notes with favorite booksellers around the country. I always come home with books by authors I'd never heard of - or books I've read about but didn't realize I might love. — Julia Glass

This room had long served as a retreat from the disharmony and sadness of the first floor, and it was here I had fallen in love with these books and authors in a way that only lifelong readers know and understand. A good movie had never once affected me in the same life-changing way a good book could. Books had the power to alter my view of the world forever. A good movie could change my perceptions for a day. — Pat Conroy

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

Smash market vs. mass market: Indie authors delve deep into expressive vertical genres. Book stores hold 90-day-credit-return literature. Why wait? In five years, Indie authors will be both. — Peter Prasad

Every year the literary press praises dozens if not hundreds of novels to the skies, asserting explicitly or implicitly that these books will probably not be suffering water damage in the basements of their authors' houses 20 years from now. But historically, anyway, that's not the way the novelistic ecology works. — Lev Grossman

It's better not to know authors personally, because the real person never corresponds to the image you form of him from reading his books. — Italo Calvino

Authors are known to have fiendishly clever minds, and the authors of children's books are more fiendishly clever than most. What — Alan Bradley

I know dozens of authors who have had a lot of books published by New York, and they won't ever take another Big 6 contract since they've gotten a taste of the freedom, control, and money self-publishing offers. — J.A. Konrath

I should tell you that many people think that authors just cut and paste from real life into books. It doesn't work quite that way. — Paul Fleischman

I didn't have anyone, but every time I walked through those doors I felt like each of those authors was my family and the characters they created were all my friends. I counted on them. They were all I ever had. All I still have. Now that the store may go out of business I feel like I'm losing my family and friends. I love all my books. Being a book lover saved my life. — J.L. Mac

It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her, but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success. — R.L. Stine

Walking along the avenues, we had one of the so-called intellectual conversations, which consist a great deal in quoting names of books and authors. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

I had some very, very fond memories of the people I worked with and the authors I worked with - and I won't mention any names - but as I have been traveling through rural Maine over the past few weeks, one of my favorite things to do is to go into bookstores on the side of rural routes and paw through the old copies of Tom Clancy and Trevanian books they have in there for weird old 1970s thrillers that I haven't read yet. — John Hodgman

All writers and their readers should stand up and voice their opposition to financial services companies censoring books. Authors should have the freedom to publish legal fiction, and readers should have the freedom to read what they want. — Mark Coker

Every writer at least once in his/er lifetime creates a character who loves books. — Himanshu Chhabra

Elevation Book Publishing drives each book to their highest peak and afford authors the opportunity to rise to their full potential. We create thriving partnerships. — Rhonda Wilson

My Most True Assassin, Enclosed are seven books from my personal library that I have recently read and enjoyed immensely. You are, of course, free to read as many of the books in the castle library as you wish, but I command you to read these first so that we might discuss them. I promise they are not dull, for I am not one inclined to sit through pages of nonsense and bloated speech, though perhaps you enjoy works and authors who think very highly of themselves. Most affectionately, Dorian Havilliard — Sarah J. Maas

People should be interested in books, not their authors. — Agatha Christie

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

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

Readers have the right to say whatever the fuck they want about a book. Period. They have that right. If they hate the book because the MC says the word "delicious" and the reader believes it's the Devil's word and only evil people use it, they can shout from the rooftops "This book is shit and don't read it" if they want. If they want to write a review entirely about how much they hate the cover, they can if they want. If they want to make their review all about how their dog Foot Foot especially loved to pee on that particular book, they can."
[Blog entry, January 9, 2012] — Stacia Kane

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

One of my favorite authors is Robert Cormier. He was a devout Catholic and a very nice man, which might not be the impression you get from reading his books. — Sara Zarr

When male authors write love stories, the heroine tends to end up dead. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Books, the books that I loved above all else to spend my time with, were the great tools for understanding one's life and the lives of other people. — Ellen Douglas

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

I tell myself it does not matter what one reads
favorite authors, particular themes
as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books. — Helen Simonson

You were right the first time, Cathy. It was a stupid, silly story.
Ridiculous! Only insane people would die for the sake of love. I'll
bet you a hundred to one a woman wrote that junky romantic trash!"
Just a minute ago I'd despised that author for bringing about such a
miserable ending, then there I went, rushing to the defense. "T. M.
Ellis could very well have been a man! Though I doubt any woman writer
in the nineteenth century had much chance of being published, unless
she used her initials, or a man's name. And why is it all men think
everything a woman writes is trivial or trashy-or just plain silly
drivel? Don't men have romantic notions? Don't men dream of finding
the perfect love? And it seems to me, that Raymond was far more
mushy-minded than Lily! — V.C. Andrews

In contrast to the notion that any publicity is good publicity, negative reviews hurt sales for some books. But for books by new or relatively unknown authors, negative reviews increased sales by 45%.... Even a bad review or negative word of mouth can increase sales if it informs or reminds people that the product or idea exists. — Jonah Berger

Quotologists encounter happy surprises, bright books by faded authors, treasures hidden under dust. — Willis Regier

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

Every true novelist listens for that suprapersonal wisdom, which explains why great novels are always a little more intelligent than their authors. Novelists who are more intelligent than their books should go into another line of work. — Milan Kundera

[Lord Horror] was so unique and radical, I expected to go to prison for it. I always thought that if you wrote a truly dangerous book -- something dangerous would happen to you. Which is one reason there are so few really dangerous books around. Publishers play at promoting dangerous books, whether they're Serpent's Tail or Penguin. All you get is a book vetted by committee, never anything radically imaginative or offensive that will take your fucking head off. Ironically, I think it would do other authors a power of good if they had to account for their books by going to prison -- there are far too many bad books being published! — David Britton

She's always loved writers, even more than the books I think. They're like personal friends to her. — Josephine Hart

I like to read as much as I can from every genre. That way, I can express my love for all writers. — Jen Selinsky

With so many book projects filling mind and heart, it feels similar to pregnancy. Your own books are like your children - you have to give birth to them, raise them, and do your best to make sure they live happily. You know, you just HAVE TO put into writing all of those thoughts, words and ideas appearing and growing in your head. Otherwise, life will make no sense without it. — Sahara Sanders

For the first time in her life, she read voraciously. Anything that was on Joe's bookshelves she considered to have a worthy seal of approval. She tried authors she'd never heard of and authors she'd always meant to read. Every now and then she read passages twice, three times even, enjoying the wordcraft, the drama - but imagining that Joe had liked the book and wondering when he might be back and if there would be dinners they could share to discuss books they'd both read. [ ... ] Tess was well aware it was escapiscm but what a way to pass another evening on her own. — Freya North

For writers, handing a manuscript off to an editor is like walking into a parole hearing. You've done the time but wonder if it's going to satisfy the judge. — Shandy L. Kurth

I think I'm probably going to be one of those unnoticed Authors that get discovered well after I have passed on. I better drill into my daughter now on how I want my books to be abstracted into Television or Film before it's too late lol — Ellie Williams

Sometimes I wonder if novel writers aren't completely f**ked in the head. ~ Drew Stirling — Jayden Hunter

Most people don't read books, but when they do, mine are the first, and that's enough for me. — Daniel Marques

David had left her,taking his insane jealousy with him. — Mary Papas

Sulphurous wind gusted in his wake; the dust of the street swirled and the folds of his black coat flapped against his thin body. — A.F. Stewart

As an author the question I get asked the most is, "why do you write?" My knee jerk response is, "Because I love it," which is true, but not the whole truth.
So here is my revised response to that question; "I write for the thirteen year old me who hated reading and craved something different than the boring literature I was forced to read for school. I write to see something I want to read exist in the world. I write because it becomes unbearable to hold so many stories in my head without a way to express them, but most importantly, I write to be true to myself. — Day Parker

All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed. — Norman MacCaig

Great writers experience their dreams. They put them on paper, where others can read about them. — Ellen J. Barrier

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

Humans are very complex; I definitely have a new respect for authors that are able to write books nonstop. It's an incredible talent. — Hilary Duff

The authors whose books get published - once accepted as a reclusive breed - are now vetted by publicists to make sure they're talk-show ready. — Susan Cain

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

Authors do not choose a story to write, the story chooses us. — Richard P. Denney

There are scores of books offering 'solutions' to sprawl. Their authors would do well to read this book. — Witold Rybczynski

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

Even in their reading, More charged, too many women were prone to superficiality. In search of a passing knowledge of books and authors, many read anthologies of excerpted works, that selected the brightest passages but left out deeper contexts - eighteenth-century Reader's Digest were quite popular. More cautioned against a habit she viewed as cultivating a taste only for "delicious morsels," one that spits out "every thing which is plain." Good books, in contrast, require good readers: "In all well-written books, there is much that is good which is not dazzling; and these shallow critics should be taught, that it is for the embellishment of the more tame and uninteresting parts of his work, that the judicious poet commonly reserves those flowers, whose beauty is defaced when they are plucked from the garland into which he had so skillfully woven them. — Karen Swallow Prior

I've heard that some authors do dream their books and I would love that if it happened to me, but so far it hasn't. Sometimes I'll get a good idea during the night and if I don't write it down, I won't remember it the next morning. — Judy Blume

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

Libraries are about books. Books have no color. And they don't care who reads them. — Augusta Scattergood

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

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.

Looking back over my own life I here declare without apology that it is the study of God's Word, year after year, close communion with Christ, and great books that have nourished my soul in wondrous ways. Such authors as Fenelon, Henry Drummond, F. B. Meyer, G. Campbell Morgan, Martyn Lloyd Jones, A. W. Tozer, Hannah Whitehall Smith Oswald Chambers, Andrew Murray and John Stott have each, with their own special insights, enriched my life beyond measure. — W. Phillip Keller

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most books set in England between 1800 and 1840 have a 'Regency' feel. The reason that era is so useful for romance authors stems from the wide-ranging social changes that were occurring over that time, and the parallels, or echoes, those create with our time and the lives of our readers. — Stephanie Laurens

But I must hope that books possess a life of a more varied kind than their authors' myopia concedes to them. A book is a kind of of machine which the reader can freely use as a generator of intellectual stimulation. It is enough that the book should be truly a machine for thinking, that it should generate a variety of possible conclusions without its author's ordaining and limiting them in advance. — Umberto Eco

This was the sort of situation that she read about in the novels she favored, by authors such as Miss Jane Austen, whom Margaret was sure she'd met long ago at the Assembly Rooms the first time we visited Lyme. One of Miss Austen's books had even featured Lyme Regis, but I did not read fiction and could not be persuaded to try it. Life itself was far messier and didn't end so tidily with the heroine making the right match. We Philpot sisters were the very embodiment of that frayed life. I did not need novels to remind me of what I had missed. — Tracy Chevalier

Even for studies, where expenditure is most honorable, it is justifiable only so long as it is kept within bounds. What is the use of having countless books and libraries, whose titles their owners can scarcely read through in a whole lifetime? The learner is, not instructed, but burdened by the mass of them, and it is much better to surrender yourself to a few authors than to wander through many. — Seneca.

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

Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. — Albert Einstein

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

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

Would you like to come in?" I said. My hands were sweaty. Inside my chest an ocean heaved and crashed and heaved again.
"I would," he said. I saw his Adam's apple jerk as he swallowed. "Thank you."
I was distracted by that thank you. We had moved past the language of formality long ago. It was strange to relearn it with each other. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I wonder what book signings will be like when most of the books we read are electronic. Will authors sign something else? A flyer, perhaps? A special kind of card devised for the purpose? — Susan Orlean

Authors do not own books, readers do — John Green

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

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

The great writers have always been great readers, but that does not mean that they read all the books that, in their day, were listed as the indispensable ones. In many cases, they read fewer books than are now required in most of our colleges, but what they did read, they read well. Because they had mastered these books, they became peers with their authors. They were entitled to become authorities in their own right. In the natural course of events, a good student frequently becomes a teacher, and so, too, a good reader becomes an author. — Mortimer J. Adler

People visit exposed and vulnerable; writers live there — Alisa Hope Wagner

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

I think it's always good to read local authors or relevant books. In Egypt, I studied hieroglyphics and read everything about the mummies. — Jane Birkin

Life is like a jigsaw puzzle; Not a "Box of chocolate" You have to put the pieces together to get the 'real' picture. — Andrea L'Artiste

The Only Person I'm Prejudice Against, is The Lazy One! — Latif Mercado

I've been drawing authors and politicians for newspapers for many years. I try to read up on the person; in the case of authors, read one of their books. I watch interviews via YouTube and collect pictures via the Internet. — Siegfried Woldhek

Your parents are weirdos, in the best possible way. They do not celebrate birthdays; never in your life have you received a present on the tenth of December. Instead, you are given books on the days that their authors were born. — Robin Sloan