Published Author Quotes & Sayings

For nearly twenty years I have been a published author ... But I have never yet seen a book of mine offered for sale in a shop window. — George Bernard Shaw

Lemat's agent says to him: y duty to you, first and foremost, is make sure you have a career, a prosperous one. I know authors always want to pander to their more artistic leanings, but this is a business after all. You have to do something to pay the bills so you can keep on writing. If you wanted to be an author just for the sake of expressing your thoughts, you could have done that by staying self-published, am I correct? but that's not what you wanted. That's not why you penned Killing Jesus. You wanted to get out there and swim in a bigger pond, didn't you? Well, here you are. Welcome to the blooming ocean. — Henry Mosquera

Please then, can we stop this obsession with the tiny minority of writers who have made a fortune from their work, and/or those who look hot in their author pics. Please can we also stop dissolving into factions of the bestselling, the midlist, the self-published, the Hampstead-dwelling, those who like to write cheerful stories and those who prefer to write grim ones. And instead take a proper and considered look at the future of the entire profession of writing. — Caroline Sanderson

The annual award of $5,000 goes to an author for a meritorious book published in the previous year for children or young adults. Scott O'Dell established this award to encourage other writers
particularly new authors
to focus on historical fiction. He hoped in this way to increase the interest of young readers in the historical background that has helped to shape their country and their world. — Scott O'Dell

I was first published as a paranormal author back in the early 1990s. I was one of the founders of that original wave of paranormal and am the leader of the new wave of paranormal that started at the beginning of this century. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Every author believes, when his first book is published, that those that acclaim it are his personal friends or impersonal peers, while its revilers can only be envious rogues and nonentities. — Vladimir Nabokov

If you're a bookworm and love to read popular fiction, and don't really care about who the author is, regardless if it is self-published or traditionally published, then Kindle Unlimited might be a good service for you. — K.D Techster

One of the biggest differences between you and a traditionally published author is that a self-pubbed author is responsible for everything. Not just writing the book - but cover design, editing, producing, distribution, and publicity as well. — M.J. Rose

When 'The Awakening' was published it was considered so scandalous it was banned in the author's home-town library, and she herself was barred from the Fine Arts Club in the same city. What the novel has to offer, among other things, is honesty. — Jane Smiley

You have to hold on and be patient. Pain lasts for a while, but you must leave room for happiness when you find it. — S.N. Lemoing

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

I myself found a fascinating example of this in Nietzsche's book Thus Spake Zarathustra, where the author reproduces almost word for word an incident reported in a ship's log for the year 1686. By sheer chance I had read this seaman's yarn in a book published about 1835 (half a century before Nietzsche wrote); and when I found the similar passage in Thus Spake Zarathustra, I was struck by its peculiar style, which was different from Nietzsche's usual language. I was convinced that Nietzsche must also have seen the old book, though he made no reference to it. I wrote to his sister, who was still alive, and she confirmed that she and her brother had in fact read the book together when he was 11 years old. I think, from the context, it is inconceivable that Nietzsche had any idea that he was plagiarizing this story. I believe that fifty years later it has unexpectedly slipped into focus in his conscious mind. — C. G. Jung

When I started this book last year, I had a small reception in mind. A few copies in my hand to share with close friends, maybe a small gathering... I never imagined that my book would have its own ISBN number and be available to the public. I never imagined seeing my name next to the words, "published author." I feel so thankful that this has worked out so well for me. God is good! — Kristyn Van Cleave

And in fact, writing is one of the worst-paid professions in the world: The average book sells fewer than 500 copies The average writer makes less than $10,000 per book advance. The average self-published author makes less $5000 in royalties per year. — Monica Leonelle

Write. Remember, people may keep you (or me) from being a published author but no one can stop you from being a writer. All you have to do is write. And keep writing. While you're working at a career, while you're raising children, while you're trout fishing
keep writing! No one can stop you but you. — Katherine Neville

I know another New York Times bestselling author - Beth Kephart - she self-published one of her books. — Caroline Leavitt

The one man who should never attempt an explanation of a poem is its author. If the poem can be improved by it's author's explanations it never should have been published, and if the poem cannot be improved by its author's explanations the explanations are scarcely worth reading. — Archibald MacLeish

Owen Zupp is an award-winning writer, published author and commercial pilot with nearly 17,000 hours of flight time. He has flown all manner of machines from antique biplanes to globe-trotting Boeings and shared the journey with readers around the world in a variety of publications. — Owen Zupp

Stories survive not just because of empathetic characters that we can still identify with but because the author has something to say to us and they have the ability to communicate that to the reader in a clear and often amusing way. Jane Austen knows how to hook a reader with her endearing and often infuriating characters but she also keeps us hooked by her wit, her observations, and her unique use of language. Lots of other writers had books published at the same time as Jane Austen and yet they've been lost to us. Austen has survived because she has a unique voice. But the themes she explores are also important. — Victoria Connelly

A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by its publication as decisively severed from its author as in parturition a child is cut off from its parent. The book "means" thereafter, perforce, - both grammatically and actually, - whatever meaning this or that reader gets out of it. — James Branch Cabell

As a self-published author, you have the choice. Embrace the power to create a book that is truly yours. Don't be a whiner or a copycat. — M.J. Rose

To read an expert contribution on growing up Muslim in America by Abdu Murray, a lawyer, apologist, former Shia Muslim, and author of two published books on Islam and other major worldviews, click here. — Nabeel Qureshi

The early dictionaries in English were frequently created by a single author, but they were small works, and not what we think of today as dictionaries. Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall, published in 1604, is generally regarded as the first English dictionary. It was an impressive feat in many respects, but it contained fewer than 2,500 entries, the defining of which would not be a lifetime's work. This and the other dictionaries of the seventeenth century were mostly attempts to catalog and define "difficult words"; little or no attention was given to the nuts and bolts of the language or to such concerns as etymology and pronunciation. For — Ammon Shea

My first novel was published by the first publisher I sent it to. And so I've been learning as I go, and I find it now rather embarrassing that people beginning the Discworld series start with The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, which I don't think are some of the best books to start with. This is the author saying this, folks. Do not start at the beginning with Discworld. — Terry Pratchett

A reader kindly pointed out to me recently that most of the quotes I include are by men. And it's true. Personally, I don't even consider whether the author is male or female, nor even care much who the author is - what's significant is the message. Of course, women are equally capable of great insights, however in our culture it's not so long ago that women could not even be published — Charlotte Bronte

Every paper published in a respectable journal should have a preface by the author stating why he is publishing the article, and what value he sees in it. I have no hope that this practice will ever be adopted. — Morris Kline

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

In Great Britain, an author published a book in which he claimed that Jesus Christ had children. Such statements don't trigger civil unrest and bloodshed in Europe. But write similar statements about Islam in Syria and you might see bloody uprisings. — Bashar Al-Assad

About the Author Terry Pratchett is one of the most popular living authors in the world. His first story was published when he was thirteen, and his first full-length book when he was twenty. He worked as a journalist to support the writing habit, but gave up the day job when the success of his books meant that it was costing him money to go to work. — Terry Pratchett

Snooki is now a published author. I'm blaming Sarah Palin. She lowered the bar. — David Letterman

I was obsessed with fairytales, and I was a very, very inquisitive kid, and I would ask my mom all kinds of questions. It all kind of formed a story in my head, and I really wanted to be a published author when I was 10, but I had a hard time writing a novel when I was 10, so I decided to wait until I was little bit older and then get it done. — Chris Colfer

Precisely this one, which I had intended to be published anonymously so that it could never build any reputation on the part of the author, did become a success ... Don't aim at success - the more you aim and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued, it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. — Viktor E. Frankl

I'm tired of the anonymity of being an unpublished author. I crave the anonymity of being self-published. — Tristan Durie

If the poem can be improved by the author's explanations, it never should have been published. — Archibald MacLeish

The seriousness or otherwise of the subject matter is often irrelevent to the question of whether a book is any good. F Scott Fitzgerald wrote a great and beautiful novel which mainly involved shallow people going to parties in a rich guy's house. By contrast, all sorts of terrible books are published every month about men slaughtering people for no reason - a serious matter which, in itself, does not make the author worthy of serious consideration. — Declan Lynch

When a book leaves its author's desk it changes. Even before anyone has read it, before eyes other than its creator's have looked upon a single phrase, it is irretrievably altered. It has become a book that can be read, that no longer belongs to its maker. It has acquired, in a sense, free will. It will make its journey through the world and there is no longer anything the author can do about it. Even he, as he looks at its sentences, reads them differently now that they can be read by others. They look like different sentences. The book has gone out into the world and the world has remade it. — Salman Rushdie

You need to take small steps when you dream big dreams. I am a published author with dyslexia, a professional speaker who was in speech therapy for three years as a child because I had a lisp; and a slow stiff kid from the suburbs who became an All-Pro in the NFL. — Karl Mecklenburg

This new book is going to get itself finished - and published! You see if it doesn't. — Jean Webster

What kind of person do you wish to be? A part of those who take action, who try the hardest, or of those who go with the flow? — S.N. Lemoing

In the same way once a book is printed and published it ceases to be the property of the
author; he commits it to the care of other people; — Virginia Woolf

decade after the first edition of this book was published, Yan Wong and I met in the fitting surroundings of the Oxford Museum of Natural History to discuss the possibility of producing a new, tenth anniversary edition. Yan, once my undergraduate pupil, had been employed as my research assistant during the writing of the original edition, before he left for his lecturing position in Leeds and his career as a television presenter. He played an enormously important part in the conception and execution of the first edition, and he was credited as joint author of several of the chapters. During the course of our discussion ten years on, we realised that much new information had come in, especially from the molecular genetics laboratories of the world. Yan undertook the bulk of the revision and I proposed to the publisher that this time he should be properly credited as joint author of the whole book. — Richard Dawkins

Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert's first sequel to Dune, was published in 1969. In that book, he flipped over what he called the "myth of the hero" and showed the dark side of Paul Atreides. Some readers didn't understand it. Why would the author do that to his great hero? In interviews, Dad spent years afterward explaining why, and his reasons were sound. He believed that charismatic leaders could be dangerous because they could lead their followers off the edge of a cliff. — Frank Herbert

What is it like to a be published author? Image clawing your beating heart from your chest and flopping it onto a plate for a room of food critiques expecting an ambrosia that conjures visions of Heaven. That comes pretty close. — Vallory Vance

In Russia, the person who put Sevastopol on the literary map was Leo Tolstoy, a veteran of the siege. His fictionalized memoir The Sebastopol Sketches made him a national celebrity. Already with the first installment of the work published, Tsar Alexander II saw the propaganda value of the piece and ordered it translated into French for dissemination abroad. That made the young author very happy. Compared with Tolstoy's later novels, The Sebastopol Sketches hasn't aged well, possibly because this is not a heartfelt book. As the twenty-six-year-old Tolstoy's Sevastopol diaries reveal, not heartache but ambition drove him at the time. Making a name as an author was just an alternative to two other grand plans - founding a new religion and creating a mathematical model for winning in cards (his losses during the siege were massive even for a rich person). — Constantine Pleshakov

A company author bombs from the sky like the Air Force. A self-published author wins the battle by foot. — Judah Lee Davis

I have always wanted to be a published author. I write baseball books because I love the sport. — Jonathan Weeks

Bah, he still saw the same stupidity. The image of the hanged man in the farming community of Yondern flashed through his mind. Now there was a war brewing between the Steelwielders and some foreign religion. More mindless loss over beliefs and mythology. But.. he could not deny the noble features in his companions. Although Perfidian was too blithe and Elaina too didactic, they had risked their life to do what was right. He did owe them his life. He could not deny the nobility he saw in many different people, bits and pieces of nobility that shined through under pressure. The guards who risked their lives to protect the villagers, Markham who flew at the dangerous dwarf, swords flashing; even an Eruthian merchant who stopped in his journey to share tales with complete strangers'. — T.P. Grish

If I Had A Car By Ted Summerfield Title: If I Had A Car Author: Ted Summerfield Published by Miown Publishing Copyright July 2011 Ted Summerfield Cover by: Ted Summerfield ISBN: 978-0-9868804-6-9 — Ted Summerfield

And you're an author?" Richard asked, knowing very well that Graham was indeed G.M. Russell. "I'm sorry, I'm not exactly sure I've heard of your novels. I don't think I've ever read anything you've published." He was being oddly aggressive, making the whole situation uncomfortable.
"That's fine," Graham responded. "Enough other people have, so your lack of awareness doesn't inflict any damage on my success. — Brittainy C. Cherry

The first thing an unpublished author should remember is that no one asked him to write in the first place. With this firmly in mind, he has no right to become discouraged just because other people are being published. — John Farrar

Since it was announced that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has condemned my works and criticized them harshly. All of my works are now banned from getting into China or being published in China. What author would want to return to a country that banned his or her books? — Gao Xingjian

Well, unfortunately, my father passed away before my first book was published, so he never lived to see me as an author. But I think my mum was suitably pleased because she was mad about words. If she ever came across a word that she didn't know, she would always look it up in the dictionary. — Geraldine McCaughrean

The Dominion in 1983 was first published as a thirty page booklet in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Centennius. (The author's real name is unknown.) This edition has been proof-read word-by-word against a copy of the original on microfiche. (Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions no. 00529) In this text, a mixture of American and British spelling can be found. (For example — Ralph Centennius

Contrast J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. The author adopts the childish view of adults as inhumanly powerful and uncomprehending, and never goes beyond it; and so his novel, published for adults, is better appreciated by ten-year-olds. The — Ursula K. Le Guin

The Necrotelicomnicon was written by a Klatchian necromancer known to the world as Achmed the Mad, although he preferred to be called Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches. It is said that the book was written in one day after Achmed drank too much of the strange thick Klatchian coffee which doesn't just sober you up, but takes you through sobriety and out the other side, so that you glimpse the real universe beyond the clouds of warm self-delusion that sapient life usually generates around itself to stop it turning into a nutcake. Little is known about his life prior to this event, because the page headed 'About The Author' spontaneously combusted shortly after his death. However, a section headed 'Other Books By the Same Author' indicates that his previous published work was Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches's Book of Humorous Cat Stories, which might explain a lot. — Terry Pratchett

Motrich hasn't published a thing and never will, but the advantage of censorship is that you can be an unpublished author without anyone suspecting you lack talent - on the contrary. — Emmanuel Carrere

We create our destiny by dreaming bigger than most people would think reasonable, by believing in ourselves more than most people would think sensible, by making decisions that most people would think illogical and continuing to act way beyond the point that most people would have given up. — Andrew Jobling

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

Writers live with fear. Some writers cannot deal with the fear, and so they quit or refuse to publish. In order to write, you must either ignore the fear or trick it into leaving you alone. The fear is very sly, though and hard to trick. The fear in writing comes from exposing your thoughts, your emotions, your experiences, your ideas, your talent, your intelligence and ultimately your self to public scrutiny and possible scorn. The fear is by no means groundless. You have opened yourself up to the possibility of public humiliations...I sometimes wonder if perhaps the greatest novel ever written isn't gathering dust in some filing cabinet somewhere, simply because its author could not overcome the fear of having it published. — Patrick F. McManus

Forrest Mims is the author of the famous book 'Getting Started in Electronics,' published by RadioShack for many years. I bought the book in the 1980s and had a blast making the projects in it. When I was editor-in-chief of 'MAKE,' I asked Forrest to write a column for the magazine, called 'The Backyard Scientist.' — Mark Frauenfelder

Do you know who Samuel Langhorne Clemens is, Antonio?" Bessie asked.
"No, chood I?" he said.
"He is best known as Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," she said.
"I have herd of the story, but I hav not red the booc," he said.
"Well, you should read it," she said. "It is excellent reading. An American classic. Mark Twain worked in Schoharie for a while," she said.
"Is that so?" he said.
"Yes, he worked as a brakeman on the Schoharie railroad station on Depot Street the winter of 1879, three years after he wrote his famous book," Bessie said.
"Why would he do that, a famos author?" Antonio asked.
"A self-published author, I should add. — Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

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

No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published. — Russell Lynes

My family and friends have been monumentally supportive from well before I was a published author. — John Corey Whaley

I remain convinced that the most valuable use of time for a newly published author is to write a second book that's even better than the first, and a third that's better than the second, and on and on. — Suzanne Brockmann

An author is somebody who writes a story. It doesn't matter if you're a kid or if you're a grown-up, it doesn't matter if the book gets published and lots of people get to read it, or if you make just one copy and you share that book with one friend. — Jarrett J. Krosoczka

What I don't get about "traditional publishing" is that an author creates a work that they think is good enough to be published. They then have to spend their valuable time begging others to exploit them to point where they end up with a 5% stake in THEIR business. What kind of a screwed of business model is that? — David Nicol

When I look back at my career as an author, I don't look at the first book that was ever published as to where my career began - I look to the first book that I ever wrote. — Jarrett J. Krosoczka

There's a word for an author who doesn't give up ... published. — J.A. Konrath

A lot of teenagers write to me and say "I want to write a book. I want to get published." And those are two very different things.
For the first one, that you want to write a book, I think is an excellent idea and you should totally do that because teenagers who want to write, you should be writing. You should be writing all the time like a maniac.
Don't worry about the second bit, just yet because A. You need a lot of practice. You need to do it for, I'm not kidding, years. And then once you are published, it's a business. It's a job.
Plus, every author I know was that teenager who sat in their room and read and wrote. That's who becomes an author, but that's what you have to do for a while before you become an author. — Maureen Johnson

I have to chuckle at all these Twitter accounts proclaiming "published author". That's the easy part. Selling is harder. — Kitty Luv

inspirational adult romance author under the pen name of Liz Isaacson, her work includes the young adult dystopian romance series Possession, published by Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster), Elevated, the Elemental series, the Redwood Bay romance series, and the Amazon bestselling Three Rivers Ranch — Elana Johnson

This is vexing: I feel in a kind of limbo - an author but not truly an author, true authorship being conferred by having a book physically published - a thing you can hold in your hand, purchase in a bookshop. — William Boyd

I was just delighted to be a legitimate, for-real published author. — Paul Harding

Only too often the works of such authors have been deliberately neglected or suppressed. A case in point is the work by D. Dewar called the Transformist Illusion, Murfreesboro, 1957, which has assembled a vast amount of palaeontological and biological evidence against evolution. The author who was an evolutionist in his youth wrote many monographs which exist in the libraries of comparative zoology and biology everywhere. But his last work, The Transformist Illusion , had to be published in Murfreesboro, Tennessee(!) and is not easy to find even in libraries that have all his earlier works. There is hardly any other field of science where such obscurantist practices are prevalent.
(note 21, p140) — Seyyed Hossein Nasr

You are an author! You will be a published author. Take pride in that, and present only your best work. Then, continue to improve, so your best gets even better. — Courage Knight

That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he has published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it. — Charles Caleb Colton

When one is being driven to the edge, we either fight back or jump — Dino KF Wong

I beg your pardon. Sometimes, it's true I can be stubborn.'
'Sometimes?' she added derisively.
'Quite often,' he tempered. — S.N. Lemoing

While it is in no way racist for any author to write a book exclusively about white women, it is fundamentally racist for books to be published that focus solely on the American white woman's experience in which that experience is assumed to be the American woman's experience. — Bell Hooks

Under true peer-review ... a panel of reviewers must accept a study before it can be published in a scientific journal. If the reviewers have objections the author must answer them or change the article to take reviewers' objections into account. Under the IPCC review process, the authors are at liberty to ignore criticisms. — Richard Lindzen

Yes, Isaac Taylor, who has just published 'The World of Mind,' is the Isaac Taylor, author of the 'Natural History of Enthusiasm.' I dare say by this time there is a want of fatty particles in his brain. — George Eliot