Top 100 Published Books Quotes
#1. I don't think music affects what words I choose to type in what order, within what punctuation, at this point, because I'm rereading and editing each sentence, at this point, in my published books, probably 100-150 times each, on average, and listening to probably 20-60 different songs in that time.
Tao Lin
#3. Of course, people say maybe there are some self-published books out there that shouldn't be out there. Well, it's the same with conventional publishing.
Patti Davis
#4. A 2013 study by Riley Dunlap and political scientist Peter Jacques found that a striking 72 percent of climate denial books, mostly published since the 1990s, were linked to right-wing think tanks, a figure that rises to 87 percent if self-published books (increasingly common) are excluded.23
Naomi Klein
#5. My mum was a librarian, and she brought home a lot of interesting books, and we just read and read. I suppose I didn't really think I could be a writer myself until I was working in editing in my 20s and discovered that actually, the books that came in were not very much like published books.
Margo Lanagan
#6. 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
#7. It breaks my heart that we are always being nudged toward the most recently published books, when so many worthy books have gone unexplored.
Cathy Marie Buchanan
#8. As I published books, I realized, that's not really what I want. I don't care about the books as much anymore. I just want to write poetry.
Victoria Chang
#9. I went to work in an office and learned, among other lessons, to do things I did not care for, and to do them well. Before I left this office, two of my books had already been published.
Sigrid Undset
#10. Now, I had been drawing all this time - especially in France of course - so, when I came back, my father gave me the chance to do a cover for one of the books he published.
Dick Bruna
#11. The expectation was that 'True Confessions' would be my first published book, but that didn't happen. After it was rejected by every publisher in New York and Canada, I shoved it in a closet and went on to write and publish my next three books.
Rachel Gibson
#12. No shame in having a ghostwriter," Storm said. "Some of the best books published every year are penned by talented writers whose identity the public will never know.
Richard Castle
#13. I've got lots of books sitting here that have never been published because nobody could make any marketing sense of them.
Whitley Strieber
#14. The printed word will be around long after many of our digital creations are gone, either because books don't require monthly hosting, and blogs and websites do ... or because the languages and platforms for which a particular digital creation was published will become obsolete.
Jeffrey Zeldman
#15. I've gotten books published. I've met famous people that are very nice. I look back and I say, 'Wow. Thank you, God, for giving me this gift. And thank you for helping me to keep going.'
Mattie Stepanek
#16. I have always wanted to be a published author. I write baseball books because I love the sport.
Jonathan Weeks
#17. Beast Books will be longer than conventional long-form magazine articles but shorter than conventional nonfiction books. They will be published digitally and distributed on multiple platforms, and will soon thereafter be available as handy paperbacks.
Tina Brown
#18. It's not as if I've been unlucky. My books have been published and reviewed. I haven't lived through terrible literary suffering!
Siri Hustvedt
#19. I look at my first books and am glad they weren't published ... You start writing by imitating your heroes, then you keep the heart of that worship in your work. As time goes by, you get other influences and find your own voice.
Markus Zusak
#20. The vast majority of writers out there, they finish their books, and no one cares whether their book is late or ever comes out at all. And then it comes out, and two reviews are published, and it sells 12 copies.
George R R Martin
#21. I heard a story the other night about an editor who visited the Iowa Workshop and, when asked what sorts of books she published, replied, "Classic books." One of the students asked her, "You mean like Kafka?" Apparently she said, "Oh, I don't think I would publish Kafka."
Matthew Specktor
#22. The authors whose books get published - once accepted as a reclusive breed - are now vetted by publicists to make sure they're talk-show ready.
Susan Cain
#23. People open bookstores because they want their souls back.
(from "Two Women" published in Do Me: Tales of Sex & Love from Tin House)
Elizabeth Tallent
#24. I believe that it is my job not only to write books but to have them published. A book is like a child. You have to defend the life of a child.
George Konrad
#25. My mother used to take my brother and me to get any books we wanted, but they were second hand books published in the '30s and '40s. I liked scary books.
Alejandro Amenabar
#26. Magic came very easy for me when I was a kid. When I was 8 years old I started doing it, and by the time I was 12, I was already published in magic books.
David Copperfield
#27. People can't read a book if they don't know it exists. All authors need to do marketing, regardless of how they published.
Jo Linsdell
#28. This country has such little sense of itself sometimes, I'm astonished. America is one of the biggest myth-making countries, whether we're talking about how many books are published, how many movies we make. But the greatest myth of all is what America is.
Junot Diaz
#29. I was very naive, and I thought it was just a matter of writing my first book and sending it in, and for the rest of my life I would be writing books and collecting royalties. Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published.
Jerry Spinelli
#30. My books are published by Hachette. My books have been blacklisted and blocked on Amazon on multiple occasions.
Charles Stross
#31. I never really thought I'd be successful. I never though I'd get books published, but this was something completely beyond me. The fact that it happened is wonderful, but it is not something that I was aiming for.
Walter Mosley
#32. Very wonderful books might be published, and very terrible books might be published.
Victoria Strauss
#33. As for [Amiri] Baraka, he and I have disagreements. I mean, he becomes a demagogue when there's an audience. He's a nice guy in private. I mean I like the guy; he's a terrific writer. I've published two of his books. Baraka is one of these fundamentalists who is prone to idol worship.
Ishmael Reed
#34. I wrote three books before I got one published. Most writers do. Have faith, and know that with each work you are getting better.
Jojo Moyes
#35. Fanfiction belongs online, books are published to be held.
Sky Diamond
#36. I knew that if I had gone to the media or a publisher saying that I wanted my books and stories to be published to help other women start their own business~ that I would be rejected by them.
I know this because it has already happened to me many times.
Nina Montgomery
#37. I've been writing since I'm five years old. I've been writing books since high school - junior high, high school. I write every single day. I never thought I'd be published.
Karrine Steffans
#38. My first novel was turned down by half a dozen publishers. And even after having published five or six books, I wasn't making enough money to live on, and was beginning to think I'd have to give up the dream of being a full-time writer.
Ian Rankin
#39. My work stops at publication. If the books don't contain in themselves their reasons for being - questions and answers - it means I was wrong to have them published.
Elena Ferrante
#40. It's interesting that so many books now are published as the first in a series. It never occurred to me. Although 'The Giver' does have an ambiguous ending. I've heard about that from readers over the years.
Lois Lowry
#41. Every true reader could, even if not one new book were published, spend decades and centuries studying on, fighting on, continuing to rejoice in the treasure of those already at hand.
Hermann Hesse
#43. I dream that one day I would be a published writer and people would read my books - if not, I would be living in the mountains in a small hut, near a pond where swans swim, writing a diary for myself.
Srinidhi.R
#44. I like shelves full of books in a library, but if all books become electronic, the task of big research libraries remains the same - keep what's published in the form in which it appeared.
Nicholson Baker
#45. I used to feel defensive when people would say, 'Yes, but your books have happy endings', as if that made them worthless, or unrealistic. Some people do get happy endings, even if it's only for a while. I would rather never be published again than write a downbeat ending.
Marian Keyes
#46. I love the look of books published by the firm of Rupert Hart-Davis: They strike me as handsome, elegant, and inviting. I'll pick up almost anything with that imprint, especially if it's in a jacket or priced low.
Michael Dirda
#47. The memoir industry is, what's the word? Under regulated. I think it needs to be pruned. If there are too many books right now and the market for readers is shrinking, I think we can get rid of many of the memoirs. Another memoir should be awfully well justified before it gets published.
Arthur Phillips
#48. Marketing starts even before our books are published.
Heather Hart
#49. Again, we turn down most books that have been self-published unless they have a special track record. We have taken a small number on, however, and sold them to major publishers for a nice sum. But that is an exception to the rule.
Richard Curtis
#50. Glad to know about all of you who care about books, including or especially poetry. I'm a much published writer/editor of 12 books (medical nonfiction, literary novels, mysteries) and much short work, inc. prize-winning pieces.
Carole Spearin McCauley
#51. My autobiography is one of the truest, most frankly written books ever published in the western hemisphere.
Kola Boof
#52. Books are slow. They require time; they are written slowly, published slowly, and read slowly.
Lewis Buzbee
#53. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations.
Aaron Swartz
#54. Actually my first eight books were historical novels, but they were never published.
Caroline B. Cooney
#55. For seven years I wrote and published my texts on the Internet and no Arab festival invited me and no Arab publishing house wanted to publish my books, and I wasn't known in the Western world because of my political positions.
Hassan Blasim
#56. People aren't reading self-published authors because people can't even get past the poor quality of the samples. They aren't reading books they don't want to read.
Linda Hilton
#57. 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
#58. I'm very privy to the way bookstores work, and I think a lot about the ecosystem that my books have been published in. I think it's great to be aware of how publishing works.
Gabrielle Zevin
#59. If someone's going to publish a book about addiction, it has to say something new and different. It has to be something we haven't read before. A lot of these books are published because the writing is wonderful. The Frey book has superb writing, and that can be enough to sell a book.
Charles Adams
#60. (A point of view of a stupidy of mankind)...
Hey... did you check out the book by Stephen King in 7 June published??
... (I was talking to one friend if I can put him as a friend...)
The teacher says "Stop with this books.."... pff I said once not twice, why to stop?
Deyth Banger
#61. Not surprisingly, the chief way self-published authors get the word out about their books is through the Internet.
Ruth Glick
#62. My own best books have not been published. In fact, they've not even been written yet.
Edward Abbey
#63. I mean, there are peripheral things I do, I do photography, I write plays, I have books published, but that's neither here not there.
Lou Reed
#65. I know that I am very popular in Holland, in fact I have visited Amsterdam several times to publicize my books. I have a great publisher in Holland and they have published all of my books in Dutch.
Jackie Collins
#66. Typically, a book is published and gets one season in the sun. Eventually, you write another book, and maybe your old books get a bump, but my books seem to keep being discovered and recommended to new people of all ages.
Raina Telgemeier
#67. The camera is an eye that sees and records the lives of filthy people. Its pictures are hung in museums and published in thick books that future generations can see how horrible life was.
David Shrigley
#68. I had my success too soon. Three books published with Scribner's in New York before I was 30.
Morley Callaghan
#69. I don't read a lot of books that were published after 1755. One thing about having friends in New York who belong to the literary world, however, is that I have a steady stream of books coming to the house.
John Jeremiah Sullivan
#70. Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject ... they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules.
Isaac Asimov
#71. When a new book is published, read an old one.
Samuel Rogers
#72. I'm very successful, but there are 50,000 general interest books published every year. If you don't want to read mine, there are others.
Anne Lamott
#73. In 1971, when I was 29, I wrote my first volume of poetry. I am a poet, and I have published four books of my poems.
Tony Buzan
#74. I once made a check of all books in my fourth-grade classroom. Of the slightly more than six hundred books, almost one quarter had been published prior to the bombing of Hiroshima; 60 percent were either ten years old or older.
Jonathan Kozol
#75. This is the worst! Worse than that time I finished all the books that had been published so far in a series a full year before the final book came out.
Rachel Hollis
#76. We have more freedom of the press than any other country in a similar position. Even way back in the frightened '50s, Communists, for example, could publish their magazine. The KKK published their own books. But face it, the mass media is controlled by money.
Pete Seeger
#77. I tend to turn down books originally published as e-books. As for selling books directly to e-book publishers, I would do so only if all traditional publishers had turned them down.
Richard Curtis
#78. My books should feel like you're getting a peek into a private world: a diary no one was meant to read. As soon as I start thinking, 'This book is going to be published,' my drawing becomes calculated and deliberate. It's one of the ways I trick myself.
Jeffrey Brown
#79. I earn - I'm not - I don't want to claim I'm a scholar of great stature, but I have made a certain reputation for myself, I've published several books, I've never been able to get a permanent teaching job.
Norman Finkelstein
#80. Honorary degrees and lifetime achievement awards are very encouraging. I know that it might sound strange that a writer who has published many books still needs encouragement, but this is true.
Joyce Carol Oates
#81. I guess in my own egotistical way I like to create my own library of Batman books that doesn't run contrary to a single thing that has been published before, but it also stands on its own.
Frank Miller
#82. [Mark] Twain was a publisher. He published General Grant's Memoirs (a big success) and had a hand in the publishing of many of his own books. He would, I think, be very keen about the question of how a book would sell.
Hal Holbrook
#83. Brazil and Germany are very similar, but in Brazil we have a much longer career. There are much more books that have been published just there.
Gabriel Ba
#84. I published a bunch of my older books in e-book format with Open Road, which is great and has tons of hard to find older books available there.
Rick Moody
#85. So many (too many) books are published every year, and it seems everyone is writing a book. Perhaps we should all be reading more and writing less!
Tracy Chevalier
#86. And books that were published in much larger numbers than Selfish, Little are hard to find. And publishers who wanted to publish my last few works have them stuck in limbo while new distribution ideas and legal issues and fears are blown away.
Peter Sotos
#87. On the advice of my U.K. publishers, I chose a sexless anonymity and published my first five books under the semi-pseudonym, S. J. Bolton. I was happy. I could hide behind a genderless, classless persona and let my creepy, psychological murder-mysteries speak for themselves.
Sharon Bolton
#88. I'm a novelist, editor, short story writer. I also teach, and I freelance sometimes as an arts consultant. Most of my books have been published by Warner Books, now known as Grand Central Books.
Nalo Hopkinson
#89. There are many Latino writers as talented as I am, but because we are published through small presses, our books don't count. We are still the illegal aliens of the literary world.
Sandra Cisneros
#90. I speak English and Spanish. I write in Spanish; my books are published in English.
Isabel Allende
#91. My first typewriter cost me $75. I can't tell you how many hours it took me to earn that money, or how proud I was of that object. I wrote my first books on it. They will never be published, but that's all right.
Jeffrey Zeldman
#92. A writer who has published as many books as I have has developed, of necessity, a hide like a rhino's, while inside there dwells a frail, hopeful butterfly of a spirit.
Joyce Carol Oates
#93. Now, after I have published a few books, I can clearly feel the impact of censorship when I write. For example, I'll think of a sentence, and then realize that it will for sure get deleted. Then I won't even write it down.
Murong Xuecun
#94. It's not just the books Alba craves, it's standing inside a place that houses millions of them. Libraries are Alba's churches, and the university library, containing one edition of every book ever published in England, is her cathedral.
Menna Van Praag
#95. When I began to read as an adult, I read almost exclusively novelists of a generation back. I did the Russians, then I started getting more up to date. When you become published and become a reviewer, piles of books come along and you are pushed by fashion and what you are commissioned to do.
Hilary Mantel
#96. I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.
Jim Harrison
#97. Quite a few books about decluttering are published in a year.
Marie Kondo
#98. Whether I'm critically well received, whether or not I sell books - of course it becomes progressively harder to get them published - nevertheless, it's what I do, every day.
Tama Janowitz
#99. Before I was published, I thought men read car manuals or books about football. But once I started having really serious conversations with male lovers of literature, I let go of that prejudice.
Michel Faber
#100. My best advice for aspiring writers is to read a lot and write. Don't worry if you don't get your first, fifth or tenth novel published, if you keep going you'll make it. Also read "how to write" books as they may make the process a bit quicker.
Katie Fforde
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
