Writer Or Author Quotes & Sayings

Foreword of my book: The Pawn
"It is being said that time and space could be tied to their creator's stance of what they are to him or her. It can possibly be perceived by those who become the receivers of this viewpoint as something different or the same." (Claire Manning Writer/Author 2016) — Claire Hamelin Manning

The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand. — Henry Adams

Art is a captured emotion. When I say this I mean all artists, whether you are a photographer, a writer, or sculptor, you are trying to capture the way someone or something made you feel. As a story teller I am trying to captivate the audience and allow them to feel just a small portion of the emotion I am desperately trying to preserve. — Tommy Tran

What is the difference between an author and a writer? A writer, as we know, writes; an author has written. What does an author do? Auth? Authorize? An author authors. But never in the present tense. No one says, when asked what he or she is doing, I'm authoring. — Roy Blount Jr.

Among the many inconsistencies which folly produces or infirmity suffers in the human mind, there has often been observed a manifest and striking contrariety between the life of an author and his writings ... Those whom the appearance of virtue or the evidence of genius has tempted to a nearer knowledge of the writer, in whose performances they may be found, have indeed had frequent reason to repent their curiosity. — Samuel Johnson

Everytime I write, it's a catharsis. Even if I never got paid for it, I'd feel compelled to do it. And that's what makes a true writer. It's not how many readers you have or how many publishing contracts. Do you love to write? Then you're an author. No one can take that away from you. — Piper Vaughn

My daughter wrote a book. She is a New York Times Bestselling Author. Fabulous. Couldn't be more proud. She also has no health insurance. A 401 K? Dream on! My daughter left her stable corporate job to be a writer without dental benefits or a savings account, a.k.a. my worst nightmare. — Kate Siegel

And remember whatever discipline you're in, whether you're a musician or a photographer, fine artist or a cartoonist, writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer... whatever you do, you have a thing that's unique. You have the ability to make art. — Neil Gaiman

I am a writer (and one day I'll be an author). For a long time I was a bookseller (who wrote) or a TV producer (who wrote), but for the last decade or so, its been "writer." — Michael Scott

I'm an author who likes assignments, who needs suggestions, ideas I would never have thought of otherwise - then something happens inside my alien head. Other people have to decide whether or not I'm a good writer, but I do have the ability to write in different styles. — David Lagercrantz

I maintain that any writer of a book is fully authorised in attaching any meaning he likes to a word or phrase he intends to use. If I find an author saying, at the beginning of his book, "Let it be understood that by the word 'black' I shall always mean 'white,' and by the word 'white' I shall always mean 'black,'" I meekly accept his ruling, however injudicious I think it. — Lewis Carroll

I can't remember the words she spoke when they finally opened the garage door and yanked me inside, but I was petrified. It wasn't sound Mom's screams or the jolt of her grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me like a rag doll that plagues my memory, but the look of her eyes- wide, wild, and unrecognizable. — Maggie Young

The truth seems to be, however, that, when he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him, better than most of his schoolmates and lifemates. Some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed, only and exclusively, to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

For some reason, when people meet me and find out I'm a writer they always ask if I write children's books. Um ... please don't let your kids read my books. Well, unless your kids are in their 30s or something ... then yeah, they're old enough. LOL — Michelle M. Pillow

A man is not in any difficulty in making a reply according to his faith ... to those who try to defame our Holy Scripture ... when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture ... either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt ... let us choose [the doctrine] which appears as certainly the meaning intended by the author ... For it is one thing to fail to recognize the primary meaning of the writer, and another to depart from the norms of religious belief. — Augustine Of Hippo

I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn't a popularity contest, it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church. But it's Writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe. — Stephen King

Reading, I had learned, was as creative a process as writing, sometimes more so. When we read of the dying rays of the setting sun or the boom and swish of the incoming tide, we should reserve as much praise for ourselves as for the author. After all, the reader is doing all the work - the writer might have died long ago. — Jasper Fforde

This is for everyone who has ever looked at the stars, or gazed from atop a hill, or across the sea and wondered ... — Tim Perkins

INDIE AUTHOR= A writer growing, learning, developing their trade-set based on skills they are acquiring along their journey. (They are not in training or less professional. They are simply working with their own allowances of income with financial support far from the more broader publisher's stature to try to produce the best quality of work for you the reader.) — Eri Nelson

I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.
This tender relationship can change in a twinkling. If you skip a visit or two, a work in progress will turn on you. — Annie Dillard

On the one hand, any analysis which foregrounds one vector of power over another will doubtless become vulnerable to criticisms that it not only ignores or devalues the others, but that its own constructions depend on the exclusion of the others in order to proceed. On the other hand, any analysis which
pretends to be able to encompass every vector of power runs the risk of a certain epistemological imperialism which consists in the presupposition
that any given writer might fully stand for and explain the complexities of contemporary power. No author or text can offer such a reflection of the world, and those who claim to offer such pictures become suspect by virtue of that very claim. — Judith Butler

This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in literature than in any other art. For decades now, literary critics have understood it to be their task to translate the elements of the poem or play or novel or story into something else. Sometimes a writer will be so uneasy before the naked power of his art that he will install within the work itself - albeit with a little shyness, a touch of the good taste of irony - the clear and explicit interpretation of it. Thomas Mann is an example of such an overcooperative author. In the case of more stubborn authors, the critic is only too happy to perform the job. — Susan Sontag

The artistic bend is a sell-out. It's all truth, or it's no good. EIther write what's in the heart, all of it, the good, the bad, the ugly, the uglier, the privat and even more private and it's a book worth reading. Not willing to go there? Do yourself and the world a favor: Don't write it until you're ready to do so. Only then is it your truest artist being heard. And only then will the world want to hear what you have to say."

-Wendy K. Williamson 9/25/14 — Wendy K. Williamson

I think Dr. Willis McNelly at the California State University at Fullerton put it best when he said that the true protagonist of an sf story or novel is an idea and not a person. If it is *good* sf the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification-ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader's mind so that the mind, like the author's, begins to create. Thus sf is creative and it
inspires creativity, which mainstream fiction by-and-large does not do. We who read sf (I am speaking as a reader now, not a writer) read it because we love to experience this chain-reaction of ideas being set off in our minds by something we read, something with a new idea in it; hence the very best since fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create and enjoy doing it: joy is the essential and final ingredient of science fiction, the joy of discovery of newness. — Philip K. Dick

The righteous will possess the earth, and they will live forever on it." PSALM 37:29. ~Stop being envious no one can make it without the true help of a honest individual or someone who believes in your future. Stop hating people for success this will make your bones rotten. DONT burn the only bride you left standing. Your image doe's not pay bills stop being concerned about how your social media page looks. & build a foundation on the heels of your strength. Stop feeling sorry for yourselves the world is to cold for anyone to be in weakness. #God1st #FAMILYCLOSE #Author #Writer #MusicArtist — Ray Rage Patino

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

Edward," said Avon with a sigh, "maybe I shouldn't be a writer or an author. I had no idea it would be so hard."
"Be a reader then."
"Is that easier?"
"Actually, it's much harder."
"I don't understand," said Avon.
"Avon, what's writing? Scribbled letters on paper. It's the reader who has to make sense of it. — Avi

I used to say, read as much as you can. Now I say, read the best that you can, the stories that resonate with you, the books that are important to you. Try to read, not only as a reader, but also as a writer, to deconstruct how the author is telling his or her story. — Cristina Henriquez

Listen closely. There's a remote possibility that you might learn something: First, I don't give a damn if my work is commercial or not ... I'm the writer. If what I write is good, then people will read it. That's why literature exists. An author puts his heart and guts on the page. For your information, a good novel can change the world. Keep that in mind before you attempt to sit down at a typewriter. Never waste time on something you don't believe in yourself. — John Fante

The single characteristic that most makes a difference in the success of an article or nonfiction book is the author's courage in revealing normally unspoken things about himself or his society. It takes guts to be a writer — Sol Stein

People like dialogue. Being a part of it or reading it. Me personally, I'd rather write it. — Andrea L'Artiste

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation. — Tana French

The hours spent forming a written work can make one obsessive, distracted, compulsive, and neurotic even, especially when it comes to those rare, precious occasions of streaming pure inspiration. To have a muse moment interrupted - to watch her scuttle back into hiding with unshared insight remaining on the tip of her tongue - is a wicked irritation. When a writer's eyes glaze over, when she stares off at nothing or appears to be memorizing the lines on a blank page, when she falls asleep at the desk ... tiptoe softly. For a writer's greatest desire is to receive inspiration; her greatest nightmare, to have tossed to the wind what could've been captured in words. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Back at the Davydokovo apartment, we sat mesmerized in front of Grandad's Avantgard brand TV. It was all porn all the time. Porn in three flavors: 1)Tits and asses; 2) gruesome close-ups of dead bodies from war or crimes; 3) Stalin. Wave upon wave of previously unseen documentary footage of the Generalissimo. Of all the porn, number three was the most lurid. The erotics of power. — Anya Von Bremzen

Indeed a good quotation hardly ever comes amiss. It is a pleasing break in the thread of a speech or writing, allowing the speaker or writer to retire for an instant while another and greater makes himself heard. And this calling-up of the deathless dead implies also a community of mind with them, which the reader will not grudge the author lest he should seem to deny it to himself. — William Francis Henry King

Oftentimes, if a writer really gets her hooks into me, I'll want to read interviews, or listen to an interview, or read a literary biography or a memoir of some kind. And doing so almost always deepens my enjoyment of the author and her work. — Brad Listi

The unique point of view from which the author can present the world to those freedoms whose concurrence he wishes to bring about is that of a world to be impregnated always with more freedom. It would be inconceivable that this unleashing of generosity provoked by the writer could be used to authorize an injustice, and that the reader could enjoy his freedom while reading a work which approves or accepts or simply abstains from condemning the subjection of man by man. In — Thomas R. Flynn

If you don't put 99 percent of yourself into the writing, there will be no publishing career. There's the writer and there's the author. The author - you don't ever think about the author. Just think about the writer. So my advice would be, find a way to not care - easier said than done. Accept that the world may never notice this thing you worked so hard at. And instead, do it for it, find a job, find a way of living that gives you an hour or two or three a day to do it, and then work your ass off sending out, trying to get out there, but do not put the pressure on the work to do something for you. Because then you're going to be writing dishonestly and for the market instead of for the characters and your story. — Andre Dubus III

The first task of every author is to evoke emotion in their reader. You may laugh or you may cry; you may love me or you may hate me. So long as you feel something, I know that I'm doing my job. — V.L. Dreyer

There is no good or bad author; there is only one kind of an author, that who connects with the readers. — Saru Singhal

A writer or an author must always be the no.1 fan of his/her book. — Aditi Dufare

For one thing, a first edition certainly is the edition nearest the heart of an author, the edition upon which his hopes were laid and his ambitions builded; and particularly is this true when the book in question happens to be an author's first publication. Imagine with what flatterings of the authorical heart, with what ecstatic apprehension, he handled his own copy of the book that day it came to him from the publisher! Is not something of this spirit communicated to the collector who loves his writer and his work? Or does that explanation partake too much of sorcery? Here is the original creation, just as it came first from the presses, with all ist strangenesses and wonder for ist orignal readers, with all ist uncorrected errors and inaccuracies to mark it as the curiosity it is. And, of course, with all those mystic values that accrue and attach to the thing that is rare and hard to find. That is all very sentimental, but it is also very practical, as will appear in due course. — Vincent Starrett

Writing a novel is a bit like being Daniel Boone. An author stands atop a ridge in a mountain range and can generally see a number of peaks in the distance. What lies between those peaks - the dales and glens, rivers, forests, and other features that distinguish one mountain landscape from another... is where the artistry and intrigue of the writing process lives. As the writer sets out into the story, leaving behind those high points - the beginning, a twist here and there, the climax, and, if perhaps a bit indistinct for the distance to cover, the end - entering the vale below, all manner of things can happen the writer never intended or expected at the onset. — Brett Armstrong

Being a writer all boils down to this: It's you, in a chair, staring at a page. And you're either going to stay in that chair until words are written, or you're going to give up and walk away. The great writers have to fight for their words. They have to choose to write, choose words over distractions, and their characters over their friends. Great writers can be lonely, exhausted souls. But through our characters, we live. — Alessandra Torre

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 write flawed characters. Ones that do not always make the best decisions and are driven by ambition or lust. They are not black or white, they are in the large space that exists between. — Kevin James Breaux

A writer, or at least a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: "Whom do you write for?" The question is, of course, a silly one, but I can give it a silly answer. Occasionally I come across a book which I feel has been written especially for me and for me only. Like a jealous lover I don't want anybody else to hear of it. To have a million such readers, unaware of each other's existence, to be read with passion and never talked about, is the daydream, surely, of every author. — W. H. Auden

Readers are less and less seen as mere non-writers, the subhuman other or flawed derivative of the author; the lack of a pen is no longer a shameful mark of secondary status but a positively enabling space, just as within every writer can be seen to lurk, as a repressed but contaminating antithesis, a reader. — Terry Eagleton

This is one of the most crucial things that the newcomer needs to know about Barthelme. Though his stuff is sometimes difficult to puncture, and sometimes difficult to follow, while you're finding your way, he's always grinning at you in a warm and very compassionate way. The reader gets the feeling that the author is a nice man. That he knows when he's being difficult and when he's full of shit. Knows how much of this and how much of that you can actually take. He differs from some of his contemporaries, and from many other forgers of new prose styles, in that he doesn't ever give off the impression that he takes himself overseriously, and he seems genuinely to care whether or not his work is being read by you. He is a social writer. A writer who seems to be in the next room, waiting for you to finish and tell him what you thought. — Donald Barthelme

My words, my writing, my actions - these have never been for myself alone, either directly or indirectly. There is no such thing as an artist who creates art only for himself. That is masturbation. — Pramoedya Ananta Toer

I see a lot of writers who complain when their book doesn't sell and the reason that happens sometimes, is they don't know how to publicize or promote themselves. A writer is more successful when they're involved in their literary community somehow. It's very easy for an author's book to fade away if they don't get out in public and meet people. — Kevin Sampsell

I'm constantly trying to make what Stephen King called head movies or skull movies: things should be playing out on the inside of your eyes, if you will, without you having to think about me as an author being present.
I have no interest in being present, in intervening between you and the work. My job is to be as invisible as possible. My job is to say, 'Hey, I wrote this book and I'm on the cover, bye bye!'
The story should have its own momentum; it should make its own way. I have no patience for that showy kind of writing, which is all about how clever the writer is. Postmodern stuff just leaves me totally cold.
I'm much more interested in being drawn into a book, and I want to create the kind of writing which hopefully makes you turn and turn the pages. — Clive Barker

Never interrupt an author when he or she is 'in the zone', else you'll understand the real meaning of 'writer's nib'. — Fennel Hudson

There may be a Nurse Ratched-like listing of things that must be done right this moment: foods that must come out of the freezer, appointments that must be canceled or made, hairs that must be tweezed. But you hold an imaginary gun to your head and make yourself stay at the desk. — Anne Lamott

Check out my interview with Kostya Kennedy on themodern online. Sports Illustrated writer and author of Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. It may change your mind, one way or the other. — Kostya Kennedy

We choose our favourite author as we do our friend, from a conformity of humour and disposition. Mirth or passion, sentiment or reflection; whichever of these most predominates in our temper, it gives us a peculiar sympathy with the writer who resembles us. — David Hume

I have no problem selling books to media franchises and we do it all the time. The author must understand that he/she is a writer for hire and has no control over copyright or over editorial changes made to the text. — Richard Curtis

The effectiveness of an author turns chiefly upon his getting the reputation that he should be read. But by practicing various arts, by the operation of chance, and by certain natural affinities, this reputation is quickly won by a hundred worthless people: while a worthy writer may come by it very slowly and tardily. The former possess friends to help them; for the rabble is always a numerous body which holds well together. The latter has nothing but enemies; because intellectual superiority is everywhere and under all circumstances the most hateful thing in the world, and especially to bunglers in the same line of work, who want to pass for something themselves. This being so, it is a prime condition for doing any great work
any work which is to outlive its own age, that a man pay no heed to his contemporaries, their views and opinons, and the praise or blame which they bestow. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Who is better off? The one who writes to revel in the voluptuousness of the life that surrounds them? Or the one who writes to escape the tediousness of that which awaits them outside? Whose flame will last longer? — Roman Payne

We do not charge an author with unpardonable ignorance because his twelfth-century characters never stop arguing about The Smiths. It is possible that the writer, having only a feeble grasp of history, really does believe that The Smiths were around in the twelfth century, or that Morrissey is such a superlative genius as to be timeless. But the fact that this occurs in a work of fiction inclines us to the charitable view that the distortion is deliberate. This is highly convenient for poets and novelists. Literature, like an absolute monarch among his fawning courtiers, is where you can never be wrong. — Terry Eagleton

A writer looks at an issue and asks, 'What if this were to occur? Or what if that was thrown into the mix? What would that look like? — Venita Ellick

There's something beautiful about facing tragedy, you crack open a new, you find yourself in the parts of you; that can finally be explored freely with out judgement or guilt. Where to from here doesn't exist & your not sure when it will return, but there's something beautiful in facing tragedy, a new type of being within you is born and one whom is more fearless than ever before. — Nikki Rowe

I could doubt the value of my books as much as many do, except that, as a researcher and very curious person, I do read a lot too, and can clearly see the difference in value between what I do and what others do. I have no doubt that my books have much more value than nearly all others out there, and it wouldn't make sense for me to be an author if I couldn't see that, or if I saw the opposite, as I believe that, if we're not upgrading mankind, we're just making it lost and vulnerable to the claws of ignorance. — Robin Sacredfire

Being a writer, I think, is much like being a parent or a pet parent in my case. I love all of my characters equally, even if I want you to hate them, I love them. If you don't love all your characters you're not doing it right. — Ellie Elisabeth

No one is treated with more patronizing condescension than the unpublished author or, in general, the would-be artist. At best he is commiserated. At worst mocked. He has presumed to rise above others and failed. I still recall a conversation around my father's deathbed when the visiting doctor asked him what his three children were doing. When he arrived at the last and said young Timothy was writing a novel and wanted to become a writer, the good lady, unaware that I was entering the room, told my father not to worry, I would soon change my mind and find something sensible to do. Many years later, the same woman shook my hand with genuine respect and congratulated me on my career. She had not read my books. — Tim Parks

And then, unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere, a thought or image arrives. Some will float into your head like goldfish, lovely, bright, orange, and weightless, and you follow them like a child at an aquarium that was thought to be without fish. Others will step of the shadows like Boo Radley and make you catch your breath or take a step backward. They're often so rich, these unbidden thoughts, and so clear that they feel indelible. But I say write them all down anyway. — Anne Lamott

Writing is a vocation and, as in any other calling, a writer should develop his talents for the greater glory of God. Novels should be neither homilies nor apologetics: the author's faith, and the grace he has received, will become apparent in his work even if it does not have Catholic characters or a Catholic theme. — Piers Paul Read

Martin had a period of relishing the Boston thug-writer George V. Higgins, author of The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Higgins's characters had an infectious way of saying 'inna' and 'onna,' so Martin would say, for example, 'I think this lunch should be onna Hitch' or 'I heard he wasn't that useful inna sack.' Simple pleasures you may say, but linguistic sinew is acquired in this fashion and he would not dump a trope until he had chewed all the flesh and pulp of it and was left only with pith and pips. Thus there arrived a day when Park Lane played host to a fancy new American hotel with the no less fancy name of 'The Inn on The Park' and he suggested a high-priced cocktail there for no better reason than that he could instruct the cab driver to 'park inna Inn onna Park.' This near-palindrome (as I now think of it) gave us much innocent pleasure. — Christopher Hitchens

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work. — Augusten Burroughs

It is my belief that the writer, the free-lance author, should be and must be a critic of the society in which he lives. ... That is all I ask of the author. To be a hero, appoint himself a moral leader, wanted or not. I believe that words count, that writing matters, that poems, essays, and novels - in the long run - make a difference. If they do not, then in the words of my exemplar Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the writer's work is of no more importance than the barking of village dogs at night. — Edward Abbey

F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that's not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can't tell if what they're creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It's an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they're being entertained. Of course, the reader isn't really sure, either. They just want to know when they're supposed to pretend to be amused. — Chuck Klosterman

She wasn't all that interested, as a reader, in the reader. She was still partial to that increasingly eclipsed entity: the writer. Madeleine had a feeling that most semiotic theorists had been unpopular as children, often bullied or overlooked, and so had directed their lingering rage onto literature. They wanted to demote the author. They wanted a book, that hard-won, transcendent thing, to be a text, contingent, indeterminate, and open for suggestions. They wanted the reader to be the main thing. Because they were readers.
Whereas Madeleine was perfectly happy with the idea of genius. She wanted a book to take her places she couldn't get to herself. She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Whether you're an unpublished novelist or a sixteen-time New York Times bestselling author, you can always improve your craft. You can always become a better writer. — Robert Dugoni

If you open a book and find that the writer is trying to impress you with his knowledge of long, unusual words or by his use of foreign phrases, close the book quickly with no sense of loss or of deficiency or of having missed anything; for the author has not learned how to write and perhaps never will, and there is no need for you to offer yourself as a sounding board for his incompetence. — Burton Rascoe

Always write exactly what you're feeling at the exact moment when writing something like poetry or an emotional novel. Put yourself, pour all emotions into your work ... make yourself cry, feel joy if you are writing joyful things, feel lovey if it calls for it ... just put your heart and soul into all that you do ... then you will be a good writer when you can make whoever reads your work, feel. -Nina Jean Slack — Nina Jean Slack

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

Certainly the highest posthumous praise that can be conferred upon any writer is the assertion that his or her writing permanently altered the literary landscape for the better, opening new textual doors and engaging new readers. That the author's oeuvre was essential and irreplaceable and transformative. — Paul Di Filippo

An author's extraliterary utterance (blunt information), prenovel or postnovel, may infiltrate journalism; it cannot touch the novel itself. Fiction does not invent out of a vacuum, but it invents; and what it invents is, first, the fabric and cadence of language, and then a slant of idea that sails out of these as a fin lifts from the sea. The art of the novel (worn yet opulent phrase) is in the mix of idiosyncratic language - language imprinted in the writer, like the whorl of a fingertip - and an unduplicable design inscribed on the mind by character and image. Invention has little capacity for the true-to-life snapshot. It is true to its own stirrings. — Cynthia Ozick

Never let anyone use your toothbrush or your pen. -Author Wllm Worth — Wllm Worth

The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself. And she - the author - should fight always to prevent that dragging down, especially when the only possible benefit of allowing it to happen is monetary. — Caitlin R. Kiernan

He tries to go to life. So does every author except the very worst, but after all most of them live on predigested food. The incident or character may be from life, but the writer usually interprets it in terms of the last book he read. For instance, suppose he meets a sea captain and thinks he's an original character. The truth is that he sees the resemblance between the sea captain and the last sea captain Dana created, or who-ever creates sea captains, and therefore he knows how to set this sea captain on paper — F Scott Fitzgerald

Things that only a writer would understand - you're writing a character - you tell that character who she or he is and they stop you and make it clear, they are the ones telling their story. You just have to let them tell it. — Lisa Marbly-Warir

I suspect that every teacher hears the same complaints, but that, being seldom a practicing author, he tends to dismiss them as out of his field, or to see in them evidence that the troubled student has not the true vocation. Yet it is these very pupils who are most obviously gifted who suffer from these disabilities, and the more sensitively organized they are the higher the hazard seems to them. Your embryo journalist or hack writer seldom asks for help of any sort; he is off after agents and editors while his more serious brother-in-arms is suffering the torments of the damned because of his insufficiencies. Yet instruction in writing is oftenest aimed at the oblivious tradesman of fiction, and the troubles of the artist are dismissed or overlooked. — Dorothea Brande

People make interesting assumptions about the profession. The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two. — Sara Sheridan

The writer's job, after all, is not to dictate meaning, but to give the reader enough pieces to create his or her own satisfying meaning. The story is truly finished - and meaning is made - not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters the story and fills that little ambiguous space, completing the circuit, letting the power flow through. — Celeste Ng

I've long considered becoming a writer to be the death of nightmares. For me at least, since I started writing I hadn't had any. Something really terrible or awful happens in a dream and you wake up and think, awesome, and reach for a pen and paper. — Logan Kain

The reader tries to uncover the skeleton that the book conceals. The author starts with the skeleton and tries to cover it up. His aim is to conceal the skeleton artistically or, in other words, to put flesh on the bare bones. If he is a good writer, he does not bury a puny skeleton under a mass of fat; on the other hand, neither should the flesh be too thin, so that the bones show through. If the flesh is thick enough, and if the flabbiness is avoided, the joints will be detectable and the motion of the parts will reveal the articulation. — Mortimer J. Adler

So all you desi boys and girls, dark skin or not, you are beautiful just the way you are. No need to change your skin to be fair and white. And no need to adapt to one's culture to fit in. If you feel uncomfortable to do what other people are doing, then don't do it! — Simi Sunny

As a writer, you must truly possess a love for words."
"Yes, that's right," I agreed.
"I've noticed that some authors favor particular words, making frequent use of them. Do you have a favorite?"
I nodded assuredly and shared my answer. "BECAUSE."
My interviewer looked surprised, as though he'd expected an impressive adjective or some rare verb. "That's your favorite word? Why?"
I tried not to smirk. "Because. — Richelle E. Goodrich

A bad composition carries its own punishment - contempt and ridicule; a good one excites envy and entails upon its author a thousand mortifications; he finds himself assailed by partial and ill-humored criticism; one man finds fault with the plan, another with the style, a third with the precept which strives to inculcate; and they who cannot succeed in finding fault with the book, employ themselves in stigmatizing its author: they maliciously rake out from obscurity every little circumstance which may throw ridicule upon his private character or conduct and aim at wounding the man since they cannot hurt the writer. — Matthew Gregory Lewis

It is an awesome tragedy in this life that, when asking what a person is and they reply doctor or lawyer or engineer, we don't say Well thats a nice little hobby, but why don't you take up writing or painting or music? — D.A. Botta

[W]hen the modern mythmaker, the writer of literary fairy tales, dares to touch the old magic and try to make it work in new ways, it must be done with the surest of touches. It is, perhaps, a kind of artistic thievery, this stealing of old characters, settings, the accoutrements of magic. But then, in a sense, there is an element of theft in all art; even the most imaginative artist borrows and reconstructs the archetypes when delving into the human heart. That is not to say that using a familiar character from folklore in the hopes of shoring up a weak narrative will work. That makes little sense. Unless the image, character, or situation borrowed speaks to the author's condition, as cryptically and oracularly as a dream, folklore is best left untapped. — Jane Yolen

Books are portals for the imagination, whether one is reading or writing, and unless one is keeping a private journal, writing something that no one is likely to read is like trying to have a conversation when you're all alone. Readers extend and enhance the writer's created work, and they deepen the colors of it with their own imagination and life experiences. In a sense, there's a revision every time one's words are read by someone else, just as surely as there is whenever the writer edits. Nothing is finished or completely dead until both sides quit and it's no longer a part of anyone's thoughts. So it seems almost natural that a lifelong avid reader occasionally wants to construct a mindscape from scratch after wandering happily in those constructed by others. If writing is a collaborative communication between author and reader, then surely there's a time and a place other than writing reviews for readers to 'speak' in the human literary conversation. — P.J. O'Brien

I don't know'," he said. "Those three words from a willing soul are the start of a grand and magnificent voyage." And with that he began a discourse that lasted for several weeks, covering scene-setting, establishing conflict, plot twists, and first- and third-person narration. [ I learned in these rapid-fire mini-dissertations that like most literature lovers I would come to know, Henry was a book snob. He assumed that if a current author was popular and widely enjoyed, then he or she had no merit. He made a few exceptions, such as Kurt Vonnegut, although that was mostly because Vonnegut lived on Cape Cod and so he probably had some merits as a human being, if not as a writer.
I think that the way Henry saw it was that he was not being a snob. In fact I would venture that in his view of things, snobbery had nothing to do with it. Rather, it was a matter of standards. It was bout quality in the author's craftsmanship. — John William Tuohy

I was curious as to how my words started circulating at such an alarming rate. After all, every author waits to be discovered by someone. Anyone. And so I found myself smack bang in the middle of the mad hatters head, and as someone put it, Tumblr might actually be worse than that. But yes, futilely, I was attempting to discover the elusive origin of my words by tracing back notes until I came across my quote right next to a selfie of a stripper, or hooker, with a fox tail butt plug ... and that was when I stopped. — Dimitri Zaik

As a middle-aged woman who has had some luck as a writer, I'd like this profession of author to remain a possibility for young writers in the future - and not become an arena solely for the hobbyist or the well-heeled. — Janet Fitch

The Historical Point of View, put briefly, means that when a learned man is presented with any statement in an ancient author, the one question he never asks is whether it is true. He asks who influenced the ancient writer, and how far the statement is consistent with what he said in other books, and what phase in the writer's development, or in the general history of thought, it illustrates, and how it affected later writers, and how often it has been misunderstood (specially by the learned man's own colleagues) and what the general course of criticism on it has been for the last ten years, and what is the "present state of the question. — C.S. Lewis

I had depressing thoughts that the theme, even though I had thought of it, was better than I was as a writer. Henry James or Thomas Mann could easily write it, but not I. 'I'm thinking of writing it from the point of view of someone at the hotel who observes her,' I said, but this did not fill me with much hope. Then my friend, who is not a writer, suggested I try it from the omniscient author's point of view. — Patricia Highsmith