Writers Ego Quotes & Sayings

Fear silenced all interests and all rivalry. — Joseph-Francois Michaud

Women don't want to exchange places with men. Male chauvinists, science-fiction writers and comedians may favor that idea for its shock value, but psychologists say it is a fantasy based on ruling-class ego and guilt. — Gloria Steinem

Every writer on this planet THINKS he is a great writer (why waste your entire life writing when you believe you are mediocre?) but its deemed socially unacceptable to actually speak out such thoughts. So, modesty is always a public concept and not an inner one. For that reason alone 'modesty' can actually be said to be the product of a large ego, for the ego is primarily concerned with survival and society rewards this dishonesty and tends to punish honesty (see Camus) — Martijn Benders

The first time I remember women reacting to me was when we were filming Hud in Texas. Women were literally trying to climb through the transoms at the motel where I stayed. At first, it's flattering to the ego. At first. Then you realize that they're mixing me up with the roles I play - characters created by writers who have nothing to do with who I am. — Paul Newman

If there was one thing we shared, thanks to our upbringing in an ATI-aware household, it was the knowledge that the sudden smell of mysterious baked goods never meant anything good for anybody. — Seanan McGuire

You're gambling with something vital. Most writers get smashed egos. — Norman Mailer

Tips can make someone a better writer but not necessarily a good writer. That's a larger package - a matter of character. Golfing is more than keeping the left arm straight. Every good golfer is a complex engine that runs on ability, ego, determination, discipline, patience, confidence, and other qualities that are self-taught. So it is with writers and all creative artists. If their values are solid their work is likely to be solid. — William Zinsser

A nation's laws must be virtuous,
even when its inhabitants are not.
A nation's rulers must be faithful to God,
even when their subjects are not. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Still, Antwerp, the parties, my husband's talks--all of it fed my mind. I'd hardly set down my quill before I took it up again, writing stories unconnected--of a pimp, a virgin, a rogue--strung up like pearls on a thread. ... 'I am very ambitious, yet 'tis neither for Beauty, Wit, Titles, Wealth, or Power, but as they are steps to raise me to Fames Tower.'

O minor victory! O small delight! My star began to rise. — Danielle Dutton

Zafar argues that the greatest influence on a writer may be on her psychic dispositions as a writer. Reading Philip Roth, writes Zafar, might clear the way of inhibitions that held you back from writing about reckless desire, the temptations of power, and the immanence of rage, or reading Naipaul might convince you to seize the ego that so wants to be loved, drag it outside, put it up against a wall, and shoot it. — Zia Haider Rahman

Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego. — John Cheever

The world lost something when you died, Tod, and I know that wasn't easy for your family. But the world's loss was Kaylee's gain. I hope the two of you have the forever her mother and I never got."
"I will do my damnedest to make sure of that."
"I know you will. — Rachel Vincent

I'm serious!" the bearded guy said. With his eyes bright like that, Nicky saw that he wasn't as old as he had seemed at first. She wasn't used to seeing young guys with beards. "I know it was ego too, and they didn't think of it like that, exactly - but that's the beautiful thing about it. It was all accidental, kinda. And to get to your question, the traditional graf scene died out with the flashing technology. 'Cause it was super hard to get paint, and even if you did get a piece up it'd be flashed off in a second. There were a few writers who got into flash pieces- — Jim Munroe

Don't let your ego write checks your character can't cash.
another from the world of tweets — Robin Glasser

Usually, new producers and writers want to put their stamp on a show. They don't want to continue what's working. They want to reinvent the wheel. It's an ego thing. — Anthony Geary

I was only ever part of 'Lost' - a very small part of an extremely talented writers' room, where as a writer, it's sort of your job to sublimate your ego and work in the service of the show and the show's voice. — Brian K. Vaughan

One person can't be expected to fulfill all your needs; that's just unreasonable." "True, — Jane Green

Huddled in her mink in the Kansas City airport, she had a vision of women writing about sex as openly as male writers, but quite, quite differently. Some women would treat sex much as men did,as conquest, as adventure
in a way as McCarthy had. Other women would treat female sexuality far less romantically then men who did not consider themselves romantics, like Hemingway, were wont to. The earth would not move, no, there would be more biology and less theatrics. Women had less ego involvement in sex than men did, but far more at stake economically. — Marge Piercy

Take your ego out of your story. — A.D. Posey

Here libido and ego-interest share the same fate and have once more become indistinguishable from each other. The familiar egoism of the sick person covers them both. We find it so natural because we are certain that in the same situation we should behave in just the same way. The way in which the readiness to love, however great, is banished by bodily ailments, and suddenly replaced by complete indifference, is a theme which has been sufficiently exploited by comic writers. — Sigmund Freud

Fantasy works inwards upon its author, blurring the boundary between the visioned and the actual, and associating itself ever moreclosely with the Ego, so that the child who has fantasied himself a murderer ends by becoming a Loeb or a Leopold. The creative Imagination works outwards, steadily increasing the gap between the visioned and the actual, till this becomes the great gulf fixed between art and nature. Few writers of crime-stories become murderers
if any do, it is not the result of identifying themselves with their murderous heroes. — Dorothy L. Sayers