Quotes about writers and writing




These are quotes tagged with "writers and writing". You can also search for quotes containing the word writers and writing.

"Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it."

Richter, Jean Paul on writers and writing    Share


"Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed."

Rosten, Leo on writers and writing    Share

"The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it."

Rosten, Leo on writers and writing    Share

"Whores and writers, Mahound. We are the people you can't forgive."

Rushdie, Salman on writers and writing    Share

"Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory."

Rushdie, Salman on writers and writing    Share

"I make no complaint. I am a writer. I do not accept my condition; I will strive to change it; but I inhabit it, I am trying to learn from it."

Rushdie, Salman on writers and writing    Share

"Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one."

Rushdie, Salman on writers and writing    Share

"It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them. "

Ruskin, John on writers and writing    Share

"I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible."

Russell, Bertrand on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote    Share

"Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary."

Sagan, Francoise on writers and writing    Share

"The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession."

Sand, George on writers and writing    Share

"Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes."

Sauser, Blaise Cendrars on writers and writing    Share

"When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy."

Seneca on writers and writing    Share

"The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time."

Shaw, George Bernard on writers and writing    Share

"You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living."

Shaw, George Bernard on writers and writing    Share

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"I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?"

Shaw, Irwin on writers and writing    Share

"Easy writings curse is hard reading."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on writers and writing    Share

"Thus, with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: Fool! said my muse to me, look in thy heart, and write."

Sidney, Sir Philip on writers and writing    Share

"Writing is not a profession, but a vocation of unhappiness."

Simenon, Georges on writers and writing    Share

"A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind."

Singer, Isaac Bashevis on writers and writing    Share

"Paper and ink are all but trash, if I cannot find the thought which the writer did think."

Smith, Dr. Walter on writers and writing    Share

"What I like in a good author isn't what he says, but what he whispers."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on writers and writing    Share

"Whiskey has killed more men than bullets, but most men would rather be full of whiskey than bullets. What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote    Share

"Agatha Christie has given more pleasure in bed than any other woman."

Smith, Nancy Banks on writers and writing    Share

"The writer does the most good who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time."

Smith, Sydney on writers and writing    Share

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for."

Socrates on writers and writing    Share

"Writing is the continuation of politics by other means."

Sollers, Philippe on writers and writing    Share

"For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no r?gime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones."

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander on writers and writing    Share

"The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one; or both. Usually both."

Sontag, Susan on writers and writing    Share

"The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread. The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood."

Sontag, Susan on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote    Share

"Writers are a little below the clowns and a little above the trained seals."

Steinbeck, John on writers and writing    Share

"The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business."

Steinbeck, John on writers and writing
6 fans of this quote    Share

"The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty."

Steinbeck, John on writers and writing    Share

"Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else."

Steinem, Gloria on writers and writing    Share

"What you're trying to do when you write is to crowd the reader out of his own space and occupy it with yours, in a good cause. You're trying to take over his sensibility and deliver an experience that moves from mere information."

Stone, Robert on writers and writing    Share

"What an occupation! To sit and flay your fellow men and then offer their skins for sale and expect them to buy them."

Strindberg, J. August on writers and writing    Share

"Let's face it, writing is hell."

Styron, William on writers and writing
4 fans of this quote    Share

"O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee."

Swift, Jonathan on writers and writing    Share

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