Top 100 Good Author Sayings
#1. Being a good author is more important than being a best-selling one.
Tarang Sinha
#2. [Censors] rake through the entrails of many an old good author, with a violation worse than any could be offered to his tomb.
John Milton
#3. Telling a story is like trying to eat grapes with a fork. It's always trying to get away from you. And if you're a good author, and you've challenged yourself, and you're telling big stories, there's more and more that's trying to get away from you simultaneously.
Brent Weeks
#4. The good author is he who contemplates without marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul amongst criticisms.
Joseph Conrad
#5. I think I have done well, if I have acquired a new word from a good author; and my business with him is to find my own, though itwere only to melt him down into an epithet or an image for daily use.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#6. Fundamentally a good author has his or her own sense of style. There is a natural, deep voice, and that voice is present from the first draft of a manuscript. When he or she elaborates on the initial manuscript, it continues to strengthen and simplify that natural, deep voice.
Kenzaburo Oe
#7. A good author can pull you into their world, a great author can make you stay.
Tauicita Jones
#8. They could never quite reconcile themselves to the idea that our lives don't follow the dramatic arc that a good author gives to a great literary character. Only in accidents of pure perfection does the world actually become a stage. (Rule of Four, 54-55)
Ian Caldwell
#9. People know that I am a very good author. But they would rather read what I have to say about the next election.
Tatyana Tolstaya
#11. You don't expect me to know what to say about a play when I don't know who the author is, do you? ... If it's by a good author, it's a good play, naturally. That stands to reason.
George Bernard Shaw
#12. A good author, Mr. Minke, should be able to provide his readers with some joy, not a false joy, but some faith that life is beautiful. While suffering is man-made, and not some natural disaster, then it can surely be resisted by men. Give hope to your readers, to your fellow countrymen.
Pramoedya Ananta Toer
#14. Books are a weird collaboration between author and reader: You trust me to tell a good story, and I trust you to bring it to good life in your mind.
John Green
#15. My first novel, 'The Lions of Lucerne,' just poured out of me. It was an amazing feeling of accomplishment. My biggest fear and therefore my biggest obstacle to becoming an author had been, 'What if I spend all that time and the book is no good?'
Brad Thor
#16. I believe strongly in an author's moral responsibility. But his first obligation is to write good books.
Orhan Pamuk
#17. For the author there is nothing but his pen, till that and life are worn to the stump: and then, with good fortune, perhaps on his death-bed he receives a pension and equals, it may be, for a few months, the income of a retired butler!
Samuel Laman Blanchard
#18. Buy other authors' books when you go to their events. Even if you aren't going to read it. Even if you are going to give it away. Even if you aren't interested. Not just for the author but for the bookstore. It's karma and just plain good manners.
M.J. Rose
#20. There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to understand the common antithesis of a good writer and a bad man.
Edwin Percy Whipple
#21. It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author's experience worked out literally.
Gore Vidal
#22. If you can't win with words then show them a good example!
Stephen Richards
#23. The twisted thing about doing what you're good at is that you aren't really good at it until you do it over and over and over again.
Stephen Richards
#24. On deathbed every single good, bad, ugly moment becomes special.
Sheeja Jose
#25. A good way to never run out of ideas? Surround yourself with interesting people, then think about how you can make them into characters.
B.A. Gabrielle
#26. Take what is good from the past
and carve a new path.
Jan Porter
#27. When writing a book, don't think about who is going to see it. Write about how you feel in the moment. Don't let a good idea get away.
B.A. Gabrielle
#28. The men, who labour and digest things most, Will be much apter to despond than boast; For if your author be profoundly good, 'Twill cost you dear before he's understood.
Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl Of Roscommon
#29. The author's Socrates admonishes paramount awareness human limitations. If we do good to those we evaluate as good and evil to those we evaluate at the evil, and we are wrong, we have been made the world less just.
Plato
#30. An author must learn the principles of good storytelling only in order to write better from the heart.
Uri Shulevitz
#31. A good SciFi Author shows you an alien world; a great one takes you there.
Ray Jay Perreault
#32. The smartest, funniest, fastest, strongest content wins, regardless of how popular, good-looking, or renowned the post's author is. Anonymous neither accepts nor grants acclaim.
Cole Stryker
#34. Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them.
Anne Lamott
#35. Quaker author Parker Palmer said, "A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what's going on inside of himself or herself . . . lest the act of leadership create more harm than good."[5]
Lance Witt
#36. No book, however good, should ever be read as a task. If you do so read a book, it is very likely that you will not only get nothing out of it but that you will have toward the book and its author a repugnance that is unwarranted.
Burton Rascoe
#37. A Teacher is no good without the student and the student is no good without the teacher.
Larry Earl Toombs
#38. Shigure: G'morning.
Tohru: Good morning!
Yuki: Um, Shigure, it's night. Why don't you get a normal sleep pattern?
Shigure: I became an author so I wouldn't have to.
Natsuki Takaya
#39. 144461I know very little having to do with human beings that doesn't also have to do with connection. We want to be noticed, we want to be good enough, we want friends, and we want to be loved. We want our place to stand.
Chris Crutcher
#40. Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform
that God is not the author of all things, but of good only.
Plato
#41. No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.
Stephen King
#42. If you ever find yourself coming out of a time machine, run. Run away as fast you can. Don't stop. Don't try to talk. Nothing good can come out of it. narrator Charles Yu, not author Charles Yu p19
Charles Yu
#43. I have been luckier than anyone I know or even heard of. I had a very happy childhood, a good education, I enjoyed working as a teacher, journalist and author. I have loved a wonderful man for over 33 years, and I believe he loves me, too.
Maeve Binchy
#44. Someone putting down $25 of his or her hard-earned money to buy my product, then doing it again because they felt the payoff was worth it. That's as good as it gets for an author.
Brad Thor
#45. There is no good or bad author; there is only one kind of an author, that who connects with the readers.
Saru Singhal
#46. Un auteur ga te tout quand il veut trop bien faire. An author spoils everything when he wants too much to do good.
Jean De La Fontaine
#47. The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
Henry Miller
#48. My favourite book - 'The Good Soldier' by Ford Madox Ford, which I have read about 20 times - is different from my favourite author, who is Iris Murdoch. I find her books exciting and unputdownable. Her characters are so carefully studied and in-depth; I love that.
Ruth Rendell
#49. Flowers don't tell, they show. That's the way good books should be too.
Stephanie Skeem. Author of Flotsam
Stephanie Skeem
#50. How do you crush spirit? You take out all the good.
S.A. Tawks
#51. This didn't sound good. It sounded like the optimism was escaping from him.
S.A. Tawks
#52. The devil has not vanished simply because people refuse to believe he exists, no more than God has ...
E.A. Bucchianeri
#53. The signal instances of Providential goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete success demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of gratitude and piety to the Supreme Author of all good.
George Washington
#55. An author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an animal whom every body is privileged to attack: for though all are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them.
Matthew Gregory Lewis
#56. Good books don't make you think, because the author has already done all of the thinking for you, but a terrible book can really give your brain a workout, because you spend so much time wondering what incredibly dumb thing the author will say next.
Joe Queenan
#57. You are the sole author of the story of your life, my dear. Make it a good one.
Danielle Ganek
#58. I knew that Steve Harvey had a good, solid message to share, and I wanted to use my knowledge and skills as a relationship author to help him bring his message to those who were willing to receive it.
Denene Millner
#59. I believe that in a good collaboration, the authors bring their strengths to the story; one author's strength cancels the other author's weakness, and back and forth it goes.
Jack Dann
#60. The author wishes to thank: Good fortune, Godiva chocolates, and Slim-Fast
Rachel Caine
#61. The first good news for all of us, the first joyful story of our lives, is that there is a story at all, and an Author who has loved us into being.
Anthony M. Esolen
#62. Advice from a Romance Writer: Guys, make your woman feel pretty even on an 'off' day. Trust me, good things will come of it.
Michelle M. Pillow
#63. Even the crudest, most derivative novel is an expression of the author's hopes and fears and ideas about good and evil.
Steven Saylor
#64. Where do you think my new novel is? In the waste basket. I can see myself that it's no good on earth, and when a loving author realizes this, what would be the judgment of a critical public?
Jean Webster
#65. Unlike in sailing, an even keel is no good when talking suspense.
Alan Orloff
#66. Characters, for good or evil, are part of an author's family. Once we have let them out of our imaginations, they stay with us forever.
Andrew M. Ferrell
#67. An author who rewrites his own work must essentially be two people. One is the free flowing uncritical writer who creates the bulk of the material - the other is the extremely critical editor whose aim it is to make the book as good as it can become.
Gudjon Bergmann
#68. Not everyone gets to do what they love, be good at it, and get paid for it. If you do, you're lucky.
Britt Holewinski
#69. A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
G.K. Chesterton
#71. But it did her good, for those whose opinion had real value gave her the criticism which is an author's best education; and when the first soreness was over, she could laugh at her poor little book, yet believe in it still, and feel herself the wiser and stronger for the buffeting she had received.
Louisa May Alcott
#72. A good column is one that sells paper. It doesn't matter how beautifully it is written and how much you admire the author ... if it doesn't sell any papers, it's not a good column. It's a terrible yardstick to use, but in the newspaper business, that's the whole thing.
Herb Caen
#73. ~I am neither an author nor a writer. I am a storyteller with good grammar.~
Darke Conteur
#74. We can never know that a piece of writing is bad unless we have begun by trying to read it as if it was very good and ended by discovering that we were paying the author an undeserved compliment.
C.S. Lewis
#75. I shall never be ashamed to go to a bad author for a good quotation.
Seneca.
#76. [Preface to second edition:] ... I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be.
Anne Bronte
#77. Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author.
William Zinsser
#78. You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
W. Somerset Maugham
#79. I base a deuteragonist on the best friend I never had. A lot of good ideas come from what I never had and cause my imagination to light up.
B.A. Gabrielle
#80. The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book.
Vladimir Nabokov
#81. As for the author, he is profoundly unaware of what the classical or romantic genre might consist of ... In literature, as in allthings, there is only the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false.
Victor Hugo
#82. It doesn't really matter in the end. Most people I talk to don't take writing seriously. If I tell them I'm an aspiring author, they get that "yeah right" look on their face, which is usually followed by "good luck with that.
Karina Halle
#83. How can a good God appoint cruel people to positions of authority? The answer is simple: God is the originator of the authority, but He is not the author of the cruelty. Man is responsible for his cruel actions, not God. All authority is of God, but not all authority is godly.
John Bevere
#84. There is a much higher probability that a first-class scholar should commit an error than that an author who usually writes nonsense should have one good idea.
Otto E. Neugebauer
#85. I'd rather not know what lies ahead because I like the dark. I like thinking there is something good in the places I can't see. And that's not ignorance. That's just hope.
Caroline George
#86. It's good to write badly. Things can only get better.
Alan Dapre
#87. A good novel, one which entices the author as much as it beckons the reader.
W.J. Raymond
#88. I'll be blasted', he said, 'if I ever write another word, or try to write another word, to please Nick Greene or the Muse. Bad, good, or indifferent, I'll write, from this day forward, to please myself
Virginia Woolf
#90. The meanest authors have at least this similarity with the great author of heaven and earth, that they usually say after a completed day of work: And behold, what he had done was good.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
#91. Nimzovitch became then for me more or less the author of the only book which could help me get away from these Euwe books, which, I admit, are very good for the ordinary club player. But once you've reached a certain strength you get the impression that everything that Euwe writes is a lie.
Bent Larsen
#92. The old author knew all too well that the imagination was a top cause for missing good meals.
S.A. Tawks
#93. Wouldn't it be nice to say to people we meet, "I know something good about you," and then treat them that way? (author unknown)
Antonio F. Vianna
#94. A good edit process turns rocks into diamonds, and every author should love that part as much as the creative phase. I do love it. It's a different side to writing. It's like the fine-tuning.
Kim Smith
#95. I'm not a - I'm beautiful, but I'm not working because I'm drop-dead gorgeous with a fantastic body. I think I continue to work because I'm good at my craft. I'm dedicated to bringing to life what the author is trying to portray. I try to make the producers cry and the crew laugh.
Adina Porter
#96. A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.
Aldous Huxley
#97. Author' is just a fancy word for Schizophrenic people with good writing skills and cash.
Testy McTesterson
#98. LAURA ATCHISON, Author of "What Would A Wise Woman Do?", on DANGEROUS ODDS by Marisa Lankester:
"Truth is always wilder than fiction.
Hold on to your hats and enjoy this page turning look inside the world of sports betting from a good girl gone bad for love.
Laura Atchison
#99. I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author's political views.
Edith Wharton
#100. Poetry is no rocket science, a good poet writes from his heart!
Saru Singhal
