Quotes about writers and writing

"Writers are always selling somebody out."

Didion, Joan on writers and writing   

"An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children."

Disraeli, Benjamin on writers and writing   

"The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century."

Doctorow, E. L. on writers and writing   

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia."

Doctorow, E. L. on writers and writing   

"Writing is turning one's worst moments into money."

Donleavy, J. P. on writers and writing   

"Yes, it's hard to write, but it's harder not to."

Doren, Carl Van on writers and writing   

"The first essential in writing about anything is that the writer should have no experience of the matter."

Duncan, Isadora on writers and writing   

"How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours."

Dyer, Wayne on writers and writing
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"Of the creative spirits that flourished in Concord, Massachusetts, during the middle of the nineteenth century, it might be said that Hawthorne loved men but felt estranged from them, Emerson loved ideas even more than men, and Thoreau loved himself."

Edel, Leon on writers and writing   

"I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence."

Eliot, George on writers and writing   

"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers."

Eliot, T. S. on writers and writing
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"Writing a novel without being asked seems a bit like having a baby when you have nowhere to live."

Ellman, Lucy on writers and writing   

"There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man's title to fame."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on writers and writing   

"A pathological business, writing, don't you think? Just look what a writer actually does: all that unnatural tense squatting and hunching, all those rituals: pathological!"

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus on writers and writing   

"If you wish to be a writer; write!"

Epictetus on writers and writing   

"Mr. Faulkner, of course, is interested in making your mind rather than your flesh creep."

Fadiman, Clifton on writers and writing   

"There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves."

Fadiman, Clifton on writers and writing   

"The first thing an unpublished author should remember is that no one asked him to write in the first place. With this firmly in mind, he has no right to become discouraged just because other people are being published."

Farrar, John on writers and writing   

"If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoevski, all of us."

Faulkner, William on writers and writing   

"I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it."

Faulkner, William on writers and writing
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"If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies."

Faulkner, William on writers and writing   

"The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies."

Faulkner, William on writers and writing   

"My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky."

Faulkner, William on writers and writing   

"Life cannot defeat a writer who is in love with writing; for life itself is a writer's love until death."

Ferber, Edna on writers and writing
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"Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!"

Ferber, Edna on writers and writing
4 fans of this quote   

"Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight."

Ferber, Edna on writers and writing
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"Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent."

Forster, Edward M. on writers and writing   

"The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from."

Fowler, Gene on writers and writing
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"Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead."

Fowler, Gene on writers and writing
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"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."

Franklin, Benjamin on writers and writing
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"Our work is to present things that are as they are."

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II) on writers and writing   

"Analogies, it is true, decide nothing, but they can make one feel more at home."

Freud, Sigmund on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"The walls are the publishers of the poor."

Galeano, Eduardo on writers and writing   

"The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise."

Gibbon, Edward on writers and writing   

"It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work."

Gibbon, Edward on writers and writing   

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"If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts."

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von on writers and writing   

"Every author in some degree portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will."

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von on writers and writing   

"He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line."

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von on writers and writing
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"The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's written it."

Golding, William on writers and writing   

"You can fire your secretary, divorce your spouse, abandon your children. But they remain your co-authors forever."

Goodman, Ellen on writers and writing
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