Top 100 Quotes About Books And Writers
#1. Your understanding and interpretation of [a novel] is undoubtedly unique ... and that is the real beauty of the relationship that joins readers, books and writers together in a literary trinity - a bookish triumvirate.
Briar Kit Esme
#2. Writing became an obsessive compulsive habit but I had almost no money so I thought about being an urban firefighter and having lots of free time in which to write or becoming an English teacher and thinking about books and writers on a daily basis. That swayed me.
David Guterson
#3. My governing principle as a critic is to call attention solely to books and writers that merit such attention, and to avoid whenever possible reviewing books "negatively" except in those instances in which the "negative" is countered by an admiring consideration of earlier books by the same author.
Joyce Carol Oates
#4. ... unpacked her books, her sweet delight in happier days, and her soothing resource in the hours of moderate sorrow: but there were hours when even these failed of their effect; when the genius, the taste, the enthusiasm of the sublimest writers were felt no longer.
Ann Radcliffe
#5. I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn't give up. Then I wrote one more book.
Beth Revis
#6. Horror. I can't manage it. I become
well
horrified. Self-help books have a similar effect.
When asked, "Any literary genre you simply can't be bothered with?" - (By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from the NYT Book Review, by Pamela Paul)
Emma Thompson
#7. I do not believe writers should read reviews of their own books, and I do not. If one is not careful one is soon writing to please reviewers and not their audience or themselves.
Louis L'Amour
#8. It takes great courage to write great books. Find your courage and find your voice.
Kristen Lamb
#9. 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
#10. Songs. Books. Poetry. Paintings. These things reveal truth. I believe lies and truth are tangled together.
Brenda Sutton Rose
#11. I've read plenty of amazing science pieces where the writers don't hang out in labs. I just have fun doing it. And I get rewarded for it; I get gushy, especially when kids tell me they expected to be bored by my books, but weren't.
Mary Roach
#12. Only a true reader will understand how lovely it is to read a book on rainy days.
Nicholaa Spencer
#13. Writers are a savage breed, Mr. Strike. If you want life-long friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army and learn to kill. If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels.
Robert Galbraith
#14. Most people assume I write at night because of the kind of books I write, but I can shut out the light with my mind.
Carla H. Krueger
#15. It has always been very difficult for writers to survive commercially in India because the market was so small. But that's not true at all any more. It's one of the world's fastest growing and most vibrant markets for books, especially in English.
Aravind Adiga
#16. 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
#17. I love sports, as all Bostonians seem to. I love books and movies, as all writers seem to.
William Landay
#18. All writers are readers first, and all of us write the sort of books we want to read.
George R R Martin
#19. Not all writers are artists. But all of us like the idea of somebody in the year 2283 blowing the dust off one of our books, thumbing through it and exclaiming, Hey, listen to what this old guy had to say back in the twentieth century!
William Attwood
#20. Books were expensive, as well. But she'd read enough of them to know that they were only as valuable as the contents of their writers' minds - and to her it seemed that a great many writers, had they been merchants, would have precious little inventory.
Jim Butcher
#21. I think books and movies are going to go a long way together in the future. I think we writers are very important material for directors.
Tatiana De Rosnay
#22. There was a day when writers actually read," he grumbles. "They could quote Keats and Socrates. Now anyone with a keyboard and a fifth-grade education can call themselves a writer.
J. Lincoln Fenn
#23. The writers of books are companions in one's life and, as such, are often more interesting than other companions.
James Salter
#24. Writers are troubled about finding time to write and writer's block and publicizing books that aren't books yet. They agonize over how to write and what to write and what not to write.
Deb Caletti
#25. I caution writers all the time to slow down and pay more attention to the work in front of them than to the end result. I don't think you write one book and get anywhere. I think you write five books and then maybe you are finally on the right path.
Sue Grafton
#27. 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
#28. When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.
[As attributed by Alastair Reid in Neruda and Borges, The New Yorker, June 24, 1996; as well as in The Talk of the Town, The New Yorker, July 7, 1986]
Jorge Luis Borges
#29. As you write your novel, you gradually start thinking like some of your characters in it. And at times the writer may lose himself completely in some character.
Avijeet Das
#30. Write, write, write! Get your you-know-what in the chair and write more books: write the books of your heart and don't let stress steal your joy.
Sarra Cannon
#31. Books inspire a man to embrace the world or flee it. They start wars and end them. They make the men and women who write and publish them vast fortunes, and nearly as quickly can drive them into madness and despair. Stay away from what you do not fathom from now on ...
Matthew Pearl
#32. When I was a boy, my parents were writers and they owned a bookstore, 'The Complete Traveler in New York,' so writing and books have held special places in my heart all my life.
Mike Greenberg
#33. Writers just play out their fantasies in their books. They are often very unstable, tricky people, Bertie. Writers are usually very bad at real life and feel that they have to create imaginary lives to make up for it.
Alexander McCall Smith
#34. The illustrators work so much harder on the books than the writers do. I mean, that's so much work doing what they do, and it's terrible for them.
Michael Ian Black
#35. Reviews are for readers, not writers. If I get a bad one, I shrug it off. If I get a good one, I don't believe it
William Meikle
#36. How often have I met and disliked writers whose books I love; and conversely, hated the books and then wound up liking the writer? Too often.
Lev Grossman
#37. Not that the writers weren't good. I believe in those books and those writers very much. It's just that in the climate it's really hard to keep the lights on and the doors open when you're selling poetry and literature that appeals to a fringe audience.
Henry Rollins
#38. I don't hate humanity and I'm not interested in people who do. Although, it's funny, actually, some of my favorite writers really do. Like Martin Amis. My dirty secret. 'London Fields' is one of my favorite books ever. And it's indefensible! But he's so funny ... I forgive him everything.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#39. 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
#40. I used to advise writers to just write their books and it will find a home, and suddenly that didn't seem as certain. I figured it was time to act. I considered a small press through RADAR, my literary non-profit.
Michelle Tea
#41. There are a lot of people of my generation in New Zealand literature, young writers on their first or second books, that I'm just really excited about. There seems to be a big gap between the generation above and us; it seems to be quite radically different in terms of form and approach.
Eleanor Catton
#42. I am madness maddened when it comes to books, writers, and the great granary silos where their wits are stored.
Ray Bradbury
#43. I think that writing should be honest and simple, and it should say something about what it means to be a person. When God is good to us, we write in such a way that the act of reading becomes a pleasure to those who buy our books.
M.V. Carey
#44. We nurture the candle flames that show the way ahead. We are guerrillas of the word, unsung heroes breathing softly on the embers of the human mind, so that they might re-ignite the hearths around which we once found safe haven. The book is the Light and the Life.
Mark Cantrell
#45. Just write. That's my only tip. And read. I guess that's two.
Shannon Celebi
#46. Writers and books are cheap dates, especially when you compare the cost of a book with a ticket to the opera - or an NHL game.
Margaret Atwood
#47. There are writers in Germany who drink the Absolute like water; and there are books in which even the dogs make references to the Infinite.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
#48. Finding people who get enormous pleasure from reading books is a more and more unusual experience, and so writers just so much want to be heard.
Susie Bright
#49. Something significant, magical, and
inspiring happens with each word you read in the pages of a book. You explore new lands, meet new people, feel new emotions, and are no longer the same person you were one word prior to reading it.
Martha Sweeney
#50. Writers: read books. Read good books. Read bad books. Learn what does and does not work.
Kira Hawke
#51. The climate stubbornly refuses to co-operate with computer models and the writers of alarmist popular articles and books.
Ian Plimer
#52. Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.
Laini Taylor
#53. Books of apostates, heretics, schismatics, and all other writers defending heresy or schism or in any attacking the foundations of religion, are altogether prohibited.
Pope Leo XIII
#54. All writers believe in the magic of books; Jim Hines has created a system where that magic becomes real, usable, and very definitely not always safe.
Tanya Huff
#55. These writers take the essence of every person around them, turn them into books and stories without permission or even a simple thank-you, and want all the credit and glory for themselves.
Matthew Pearl
#56. The reason writers are such fragile beings, Marcus, is that they suffer from two sorts of emotional pain, which is twice as much as a normal human being: the heartache of love and the heartache of books. Writing a book is like loving someone. It can be very painful.
Joel Dicker
#57. Some writers achieve great popularity and then disappear forever. The bestseller lists of the past fifty years are, with a few lively exceptions, a sombre graveyard of dead books.
Carlos Fuentes
#58. 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
#59. Writers are so used to books being optioned and then the movie never happens.
David Mitchell
#60. I try to widen the horizons of every child I meet, and part of that is promoting diverse forms, be it graphic novels, stories told in a narrative voice, or more translated books, as well as more diverse writers and more diverse characters.
Malorie Blackman
#61. Until you write books, you don't realize that the book does decide certain things. It must sound like complete insanity to non-writers. And maybe it is.
Christopher Bollen
#62. When reading a book, you are sold what some writer thought. When reading a newspaper, you are sold what someone did, and, what some advertiser made.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#63. What makes books - and with them writers - so dangerous that church and state, politburos and the mass media feel the need to oppose them?
Gunter Grass
#64. Home base is the support system where we have a culinary team, my own writers because of the shows and the books and stuff, we have a culinary team of about six people. Marketing, public relations, accounting and all that sort of stuff.
Emeril Lagasse
#65. 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
#66. Americans think African writers will write about the exotic, about wildlife, poverty, maybe AIDS. They come to Africa and African books with certain expectations.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
#67. The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity.
Henry David Thoreau
#68. Read different to think differently; world is already into rat race.
Aman Jassal
#69. I'm humbled and enormously grateful to be connected to [Franz] Kafka in a any way. He is one of the writers I admire. I think he has been a big influence on me. I appreciate the idea of the individual person battling the society - which is true in all his books.
Alan Lightman
#70. 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
#71. I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books.
Paul Auster
#72. Future writers hide inside books and snort up the craft by enjoyment. They read and learn structure and style. Their curiosity points them to subject matter.
James Ellroy
#73. Fiction is risky for writers also in that the process of making certain books, of shaping certain narratives, leaves scars and marks on your inner life.
Chris Abani
#74. Writing is about taking everyday observations, things which people see almost every day of their lives, and yet bringing it to their attention for the very first time.
Jamie L. Harding
#75. Indie bookstores love writers as much as they love readers, and there is something about a community store, where you walk in, you feel known, and the delight in books is just infectious.
Caroline Leavitt
#76. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob, before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.
Henry David Thoreau
#77. Every writer dreams about the day they can step into their fiction and wander its hallways.
Shannon L. Alder
#78. If you can read & write then the opportunities are endless, if you just believe in yourself then anything is possible, you can become anyone and do anything, what's more is, you can take others with you!
Philip L. Moore
#79. Books gnaw at me from around the edges of my life, demanding more time and attention. I am always left hungry.
Pamela Paul
#80. Despite the fact that he loves books and owns a bookstore, A.J. does not particularly care for writers. He finds them to be unkempt, narcissistic, silly, and generally unpleasant people. He tries to avoid the ones who've written books he loves for fear that they will ruin their books for him.
Gabrielle Zevin
#81. I think the value in books like mine, and a great number by other talented writers, is in the ability to bring dark subjects into the open where they are not so dark, where they can be talked about and considered by teens and adults alike.
Chris Crutcher
#82. I'm one of those writers who, when writing, believes she's god-and that she hasn't bestowed free will on any of her characters. In that sense there are no surprises in any of my books.
Lynn Abbey
#83. I surround myself with books when I write, thus surrounding myself with writers... only they don't critique me and then get up for coffee.
Ryan Lilly
#84. I am forever an advocate of books, both the reading of them and the writing. There is something sacred to me in that community. Because writing
and reading
is a solitary business. And it's good to know I'm not alone.
Shannon Celebi
#85. It is true that the discerning intellect of the world is always much in advance of the creative, so that there are competent judges of the best book, and few writers of the best books.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#86. The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
#87. Bravery isn't brandishing a sword. It's standing your moral ground and letting others try their best to take you down.
Carla H. Krueger
#88. A writer who has perfect writing skills and zero honesty is not an author but a sales person.
Sandra Chami Kassis
#89. No one pretends that Shakespeare was (divinely) inspired, and yet all the writers of the books of the Old Testament put together, could not have produced Hamlet.
Robert G. Ingersoll
#90. Our constant desire to genre-label cripples new writers. Let them experiment, explore and surprise.
Carla H. Krueger
#91. Television and cable have become the new independent films, in a sense, for writers and actors to gravitate towards. That's why I like short films, too; I love doing readings, audio books, working with young filmmakers; anything that keeps you from getting blase about yourself or in a rut.
Campbell Scott
#92. I walk around engrossed in my stories and worlds, and I love losing myself in them!
Samuel Colbran
#93. Young writers should read books past bedtime and write things down in notebooks when they are supposed to be doing something else.
Daniel Handler
#94. I've discovered writers by reading books left in airplane seats and weird hotels.
Lee Child
#95. 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
#96. When my father first took me to Ennis Library I went down among the shelves and felt company, not only the company of writers, but the readers too, because they had lifted and opened and read these books. The books were worn in a way they can only get worn by hands and eyes and minds
Niall Williams
#97. Reviewing books is all about coziness. It is all of it a kind of caucus race. Women review women, Jewish writers review and praise Jewish writers, blacks review blacks, etc.
Alexander Theroux
#98. We don't want to create a literary ghetto in which black writers are only allowed to write black characters and women writers are put on 'girl books.'
G. Willow Wilson
#99. Be passionate about what you write, believe in your ability to convey timeless ideas, and let no one tell you what what you're capable of.
Christina Westover
#100. I think publishers need to be the ones that publish the books and control that process: finding writers, helping them with their work, finding readers. I think writers need that.
Jonathan Galassi
