For Writers Quotes

The American identity has never been a singular one and the voices of poets invariably sing, in addition to their own, the voices of those around them.

An original writer is not one who imitates nobody but one whom nobody can imitate.

Dr. Johnson's sayings would not appear so extraordinary were it not for his bow-wow way.

In Ireland a writer is looked upon as a failed conversationalist.

It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practising it.

Make'em laugh make 'em cry make 'em wait.

Memoirs: the backstairs of history.

The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James 1st James 2nd and the Old Pretender.

There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth the publishing to find honest men to publish it and to get sensible men to read it.

When my journal appears many statues must come down.

Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness.

You cannot write in the chimney with charcoal.

The truth is we've not really developed a fiction that can accommodate the full tumult the zaniness and crazed quality of modern experience.

I can write better than anyone who can write faster and I can write faster than anyone who can write better.

Writing: I certainly do rewrite my central myth in every book and would never read or trust any writer who did not also do so.

There is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.

Writers should be read - but neither seen nor heard.

A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.

The beginning is easy what happens next is much harder.

I struggled in the beginning. I said I was going to write the truth so help me God. And I thought I was. I found I couldn't. Nobody can write the absolute truth.

I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.

That's not writing that's typing.

There is an accuracy that defeats itself by the overemphasis of details. I often say that one must permit oneself and quite advisedly and deliberately a certain margin of misstatement.

A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed in keeping rabbits.

Writing when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.

Caesar had perished from the world of men Had not his sword been rescued by his pen.

Writers write to influence their readers their preachers their auditors but always at bottom to be more themselves.

In any really good subject one has only to probe deep enough to come to tears.

He is limp and damp and milder than the breath of a cow.

It is a sobering thought that each of us gives his hearers and his readers a chance to look into the inner working of his mind when he speaks or writes.

When I am dead I hope it may be said: 'His sins were scarlet but his books were read.'

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

Just get it down on paper and then we'll see what to do with it.

Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man write about a man.

Tennessee Williams said if he got rid of his demons he would lose his angels.

Self-expression is for babies and seals where it can be charming. A writer's business is to affect the reader.

A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied he is content.

It is in the hard rockpile labour of seeking to win hold or deserve a reader's interest that the pleasant agony of writing comes in.

Write something even if it's just a suicide note.

Nature not content with denying him the ability to think has endowed him with the ability to write.

Beauty and truth may be attributes of good writing but if the writer deliberately aims at truth he is likely to find that what he has hit is the didactic.

My novels point out that the world consists entirely of exceptions.

John the Baptist pretending to be Karl Marx.

Every word she writes is a lie including 'and' and 'the'.

Journalism allows it's readers to witness history. Fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.

The most lasting reputation I have is for an almost ferocious aggressiveness when in fact I am amiable indulgent affectionate shy and rather timid at heart.

The life of a writer is tragic: the more we advance the farther there is to go and the more there is to say the less time there is to say it.

When the style is fully formed if it has a sweet undersong we call it beautiful and the writer may do what he likes in words or syntax.

Proper words in proper places make the true definition of a style.

They're fancy talkers about themselves writers. If I had to give young writers advice I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.