Top 100 Quotes About Authors Writing
#1. Of the authors writing in English, I'd mention Shakespeare and Milton. But all this is terribly high-hat and makes me sound very po-faced, I'm afraid; however, I just happen to like these enormous, swinging, great creatures.
William Golding
#2. The time is ripe for young Indian authors writing in the English language.
Anurag Shourie
#3. As the news agenda goes into warp speed, it becomes ever more difficult for authors writing about current events to keep their books timely and relevant.
Heather Brooke
#4. We need to boost each other to get to the top. It is much more effective than stepping on each other.
Teresa Mummert
#5. I have chosen to parody the writing styles of Carlos Castaneda, James Redfield, Richard Bach, Lynn Andrews, and several other best-selling new age authors.
Frederick Lenz
#6. Payment and reserved copyright are at bottom the ruin of literature. Only he who writes entirely for the sake of what he has to say writes anything worth writing. It is as if there were a curse on money: every writer writes badly as soon as he starts writing for gain.
Arthur Schopenhauer
#7. One of the notebooks was for musings and pep talks. ... The other notebooks were for writing out the novel the way authors had done for centuries.
Gail Godwin
#10. Pretend you're not spending $3 to read one of my books but buying me a coffee and having a conversation about yourself.
Robin Sacredfire
#11. Because as any writer will tell you, an IDEA for a book is like falling in love, it's all wild emotion and headlong rush, but the ACTUAL ACT of writing a book is like building a relationship: it is joyous, slow, fragile, frustrating, exhilarating, painstaking, exhausting, worth it.
Ben H. Winters
#12. Am reading more of Oscar Wilde. What a tiresome, affected sod.
Noel Coward
#13. It is the writer's job to craft a story so compelling that strangers will pay to hear it.
Seeley James
#14. Don't let society's defined genre hold you down, be a free spirit and just write, let society be the one to decide where each piece fits in.
Uma Nnenna
#16. [Science fiction is] out in the mainstream now. You can tell by the way mainstream literary authors pillage SF while denying they're writing it!
Terry Pratchett
#17. I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this.
E. Nesbit
#18. 10% of authors earn 75% of the royalties. If you're writing a Romance novel, your odds will be slightly higher at making back your investment. Throw in a few vampires, even better.
J.R. Young
#19. There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.
Samuel Johnson
#20. There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography.
Henry David Thoreau
#21. I love words. I crave descriptions that overwhelm my imagination with vivid detail. I dwell on phrases that make my heart thrum. I cherish expressions that pierce my emotions and force the tears to spill over. In essence, I long for a writer's soul sealed in ink on the page.
Richelle E. Goodrich
#22. Good characters in fiction are the very devil. Not only because most authors have too little material to make them of, but because we as readers have a strong subconscious wish to find them incredible.
C.S. Lewis
#23. Good horror offers a sense of an upended, lawless world and that's appealing to anyone who grew up feeling like an outsider.
Christopher Rice
#24. The most difficult thing about writing; is writing the first line.
Amit Kalantri
#25. Writer's block' is just a fancy way of saying 'I don't feel like doing any work today.
Meagan Spooner
#26. For authors, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line only if you are writing the letter I.
Michael A. Arnzen
#28. What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.
J.D. Salinger
#29. Thank God For Writing, As Now I Can Work Until My Last Breath!
Latif Mercado
#30. - If you could describe my son in 3 words, what would you say?
- Sweet. Cute. Funny.
- That could be a description of a puppy she says dryly.
Mary Papas
#31. Authors have to write for their characters, for who they are, that's the strength of books. Don't worry about censors. Just write the story you need to tell and the rewards will come.
Ellen Hopkins
#32. To say that Agatha Christie's characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs.
Ruth Rendell
#33. 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
#34. To some extent, all authors are a little schizophrenic. We lead most of our lives in solitary confinement, living and breathing the books that we're writing.
Sophie Kinsella
#36. I think authors are just realizing there's no real reason to feel limited to a narrow set of genre rules in their writing. There's no reason a mystery novel can't have fantastic elements in it. Similarly, there's no reason why your epic fantasy series can't have elements of a mystery.
Patrick Rothfuss
#37. Storytelling is a gift, but writing is a learned art.
Beem Weeks
#38. Since when did books ever solve anything? They only raise more questions than they answer, otherwise they're just fucking entertainment, and I am not here to fucking entertain you.
Zia Haider Rahman
#39. Sooner or later every writer evolves his own definition of a story.
Mine is: A reflection of life plus beginning and end (life seems not to have either) and a meaning.
Mary O'Hara
#40. Authors like reading. Go figure. So it's not surprising that we sometimes bog down in the research stage of new writing projects.
Edward M. Lerner
#41. All indies self-publish but not all self-publishers are indie.
Orna Ross
#42. Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
Joseph Addison
#43. I researched fiction writing for months before I taught my first class, much of it looking for strong techniques from bestselling authors.
James Thayer
#44. Everyone's life is an evolution of emotions, spirit and beliefs. The storyline changes, plots thicken, main characters mature and new spiritual journeys begin. This is true of inspirational authors. Their books represent only the stages of their life. New triumphs of the soul have yet to be written!
Shannon L. Alder
#45. I learned to write from authors. I didn't know any, but I read their books.
Cynthia Rylant
#46. how these words, wait to die
in the arms of all the poetry..
yet to be written.
Sanober Khan
#47. It is a sad paradox that when male authors impersonate women ... they are said to be dealing with 'cosmic, major concerns' - but when we impersonate ourselves we are said to be writing 'women's fiction' or 'women's poetry.
Erica Jong
#48. The more I know about God, I am convinced He likes to read books and authors are His librarians. Every soul is a story waiting to be read.
Shannon L. Alder
#49. It comes a point in which you don't know if you write books or the books write you
Robin Sacredfire
#50. I have wanted to write from a young age, but working with so many gifted authors and editors over the years has taught me so much. I doubt I would be where I am today without that amazing experience.
Julie Klassen
#51. An author's strong belief and enthusiasm will affect the writing of the book and often the publisher's commitment to it.
Sterling Lord
#52. Professional writers don't have muses; they have mortgages.
Larry Kahaner
#53. One of the least impressive liberties is the liberty to starve. This particular liberty is freely accorded to authors.
Arnold Goodman, Baron Goodman
#54. Hone your writing skills as if they were your finest weapons of war. For in the literary arena, your pen will truly be your sword.
Max Hawthorne
#55. That is how we writers all started: by reading. We heard the voice of a book speaking to us.
Margaret Atwood
#56. All that sweetness makes me feel weird. My sister was never the loving type.
Mary Papas
#57. Many great authors of the 19th century wrote under conditions of strict censorship. The great thing about the art of writing a novel, is that you can write about anything. All you have to say is that it's fiction.
Orhan Pamuk
#58. Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists.
Sara Sheridan
#59. Writing books is certainly a most unpleasant occupation. It is lonesome, unsanitary, and maddening. Many authors go crazy.
H.L. Mencken
#60. An Authorpreneur focuses on establishing one's brand to the consumer using different avenues to promote their work.
Geraldine Solon
#61. The obscure, unexplainable aspect of the writing process is about how some rhymes appear in your head. It often feels more like tuning in to some kind of channel than composing words in your mind.
Sahara Sanders
#62. i am infinitely yearning
brimming
and overflowing
in words
i discover
it's another way
for me
to be in tears.
Sanober Khan
#63. Fiction and non-fiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Non-fiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.
Arundhati Roy
#64. The writer has little control over personal temperament, none over historical moment, and is only partly in charge of his or her own aesthetic.
Julian Barnes
#65. Poetry keeps me
in a highly drunken state
of divinity.
Sanober Khan
#66. Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.
Salman Rushdie
#67. You need to take some acting classes to learn to hide your huge crush on my husband better
Mary Papas
#69. Your whole life and the story of your journey is the landscape picture on the front of the box of a 1,000 piece puzzle. The pieces are each a small sticky note that ends in mid-sentence. You simply need to figure out where each one starts and ends.
Ashly Lorenzana
#70. I will continue to write what I love to read, and the fact that it doesn't sell as well as romance or sci-fi or fantasy isn't the point.
Joanna Penn
#71. If ever you've been down in the dumps, hear these iconic authors share with you more than their writing wisdom.
Mark Twain
#72. No matter how good it is, your book will not sell itself.
Elinor Florence
#73. I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.
Louisa May Alcott
#74. There should be more to writing than entertaining an already-brain-dead society and making money. If not,then you miss the point of writing.
Carol Morgan
#75. Writing is a vessel ... with readers the ocean and authors as its sails ...
William Petersen
#76. Most bad books get that way because their authors are engaged in trying to justify themselves. If a vain author is an alcoholic, then the most sympathetically portrayed character in his book will be an alcoholic. This sort of thing is very boring for outsiders.
Stephen Vizinczey
#77. Writer's block is when your imaginary friends won't talk to you.
Mary Papas
#79. Certain places seem to exist mainly because someone has written about them.
Joan Didion
#80. Authors always carry a means for scribbling and an excuse for pausing, often inopportunely, to record those fleeting sparks of creative fancy that might otherwise vanish like a wisp in the wind if ignored. Writing is a jealous and needy lover.
Richelle E. Goodrich
#81. Between the lines of every book the writer reveals their own secrets.
Chloe Thurlow
#82. It's essential to have sacred time for writing. All successful authors have some daily commitment to keep on-track and moving forward.
Dani Shapiro
#83. To most, being locked away in solitary with nothing but pen and paper would prove a hard punishment. What a strange creature who views this as heaven.
Richelle E. Goodrich
#85. The biggest difference between writing a movie and writing a novel? No one ever tries to sleep with me to get into one of my novels.
Mylo Carbia
#86. I think it's more difficult now to write a spy thriller with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many authors have tried, but few have succeeded in capturing the interest of readers.
Nelson DeMille
#87. How....will I ever truly depict you?
You're perfect, my writing isn't.
Sanober Khan
#88. I enjoy the writings of all of these authors and they have been very inspirational for me. But I think that it is important as writers of metaphysical, New Age, occult fiction and nonfiction to not take ourselves too seriously.
Frederick Lenz
#89. When I get into the moment of actually feeling like I want to write, to finish something, I do what I've always read authors do, and park myself at a desk and bang things out for three hours. And if I have to throw it all away, I throw it all away.
Ted Leo
#90. Writing is something you Do and not discuss. Talk is cheap, wishes are free and a fool is included with every purchase. So spend your time wisely.
Jaime Reed
#91. Once the initial excitement wears off and it's time to sit down to write, the authors are usually still very eager, but the reality of doing the work can be a little daunting.
Deborah Reber
#92. A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
#93. i write
because
it is
the only way
i can
reach you.
Sanober Khan
#94. Grabbing readers by the imagination is a writer's job.
Sara Sheridan
#95. Writer's Block: making authors miserable since the Stone Age.
Max Hawthorne
#96. The process of creation can be unpredictable and, in some way, similar to love: the brightest waves of inspiration may sometimes occur in wrong timing, wrong places, or even with wrong people.
Sahara Sanders
#97. It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.
Samuel Johnson
#98. But writers and their woes: they couldn't be parted. Not for anything.
Naomi Wood
#99. I never reread what I've written. I'm far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I've done.
Jorge Luis Borges
#100. The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
