"Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about."

Auden, W. H. on writers and writing
8 fans of this quote   

"Writers must fortify themselves with pride and egotism as best they can. The process is analogous to using sandbags and loose timbers to protect a house against flood. Writers are vulnerable creatures like anyone else. For what do they have in reality? Not sandbags, not timbers. Just a flimsy reputation and a name."

Aldiss, Brian on writers and writing
4 fans of this quote   

"The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man."

Algren, Nelson on writers and writing   

"Every writer hopes or boldly assumes that his life is in some sense exemplary, that the particular will turn out to be universal."

Amis, Martin on writers and writing
6 fans of this quote   

"It is rarely that you see an American writer who is not hopelessly sane."

Anderson, Margaret on writers and writing
6 fans of this quote   

"To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do."

Aristotle on writers and writing
17 fans of this quote   

"If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I'd type a little faster."

Asimov, Isaac on writers and writing
11 fans of this quote   

"No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted."

Auden, W. H. on writers and writing
4 fans of this quote   

"A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit."

Bach, Richard on writers and writing
16 fans of this quote   

"A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream."

Bachelard, Gaston on writers and writing
7 fans of this quote   

"Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders."

Bagehot, Walter on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him."

Baldwin, James on writers and writing
6 fans of this quote   

"Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent."

Baldwin, James on writers and writing
6 fans of this quote   

"All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac."

Bellow, Saul on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps."

Benchley, Robert on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up, because by that time I was too famous."

Benchley, Robert on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon."

Benchley, Robert on writers and writing
5 fans of this quote   

"Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven."

Benjamin, Walter on writers and writing
4 fans of this quote   

"Why do writers write? Because it isn't there."

Berger, Thomas on writers and writing
4 fans of this quote   

"He who cannot limit himself will never know how to write."

Boileau, Nicholas on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"The girl with a future avoids a man with a past."

Esar, Evan on women
7 fans of this quote   

"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her."

Wilde, Oscar on women
9 fans of this quote   

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"Men mistake friendship, but not sex, for love; women mistake sex, but not friendship, for love."

Wastholm, Peter on women
31 fans of this quote   

"Everyone is like a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody."

Twain, Mark on secrets
10 fans of this quote   

"A child miseducated is a child lost."

Kennedy, John F. on children
11 fans of this quote   

"I have met the enemy, and it is the eyes of other people."

Franklin, Benjamin on enemies
11 fans of this quote   

"In every man's heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty."

Morley, Christopher on beauty
5 fans of this quote   

"Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies, for instance."

Ruskin, John on beauty
3 fans of this quote   

"If you wish for peace be ready for war."

Proverb on peace
12 fans of this quote   

"We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction."

Aesop on enemies
24 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Enemies promises were made to be broken."

Aesop on enemies
6 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults."

Antisthenes on enemies
7 fans of this quote   

"Serve your enemies for they first find out your faults"

Antisthenes on enemies
3 fans of this quote   

"Pay attention to your enemies for they are the first to discover your mistakes."

Antisthenes on enemies
12 fans of this quote   

"Wise men learn many things from their enemies."

Aristophanes on enemies
7 fans of this quote   

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you. [Matthew]"

Bible on enemies
13 fans of this quote   

"Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within."

Cervantes, Miguel De on enemies
10 fans of this quote   

"We look upon the enemy of our souls as a conquered foe, so he is, but only to God, not to us."

Chambers, Oswald on enemies   

"The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breasts."

Channing, William Ellery on enemies   

"Why do grandparents and grandchildren get along so well? They have the same enemy -- the mother."

Colbert, Claudette on enemies
5 fans of this quote