Writers Quotes

I love and care about literature, and great writers are our teachers. You're studying their mind when you read their work.

We are living in an era of such interesting new forms, and certainly narrative non-fiction has emerged as a major form. People who are great writers don't have to write novels anymore.

Being a good writer doesn’t make you a good reporter, it takes hustle.

Good writers show rather than tell. Stories are told in action. Life stories are no different.

A lot of young writers wait for inspiration. The inspiration only hits you at the desk.

Fiction is in danger of becoming a kind of poetry. Only other poets read it. Only other fiction writers care about it.

Though not all reading children grow up to be writers, I take it that most creative writers must in their day have been reading children.

Scholars look for final truths they will never find. Creative writers concern themselves with possibilities that are always there to the receptive.

In order to be a great writer a person must have a built-in, shockproof crap detector.

I really don't want to encourage young writers. Keep them down and out and silent is my motto.

In my travels I am often asked if college stifles young writers. In my opinion, it doesn't stifle them enough.

Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers.

A good writer always works at the impossible.

They say great themes make great novels. but what these young writers don't understand is that there is no greater theme than men and women.

A good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious.

Usually people who do bad things make good writers.I did a lot of bad things, which is why my novels are interesting.

Never believe anything a writer tells you about himself. A man comes to believe in the end the lies he tells himself about himself.

I avoided writers very carefully because they can perpetuate trouble as no one else can.

The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of a writer.

The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not obliged to speak the truth.

A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.

Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot if difference. They don't have to makes speeches. Just believing is usually enough.

Books can truly change our lives: the lives of those who read them, the lives of those who write them. Readers and writers alike discover things they never knew about the world and about themselves.

Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.

Writers need each other.

The new contract between writers and readers is one I'm prepared to sign up to. I've met some fascinating people at events and online. Down with the isolation of writers I say! And long live Twitter.

Scotland consistently produces world-class writers.

Everyone assumes writers spend their time lounging around, writing and occasionally striking a pose whilst having a think.

So much of reading and writing to me is about being elsewhere, no matter how much I love where I am.

To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night.

Books are the ultimate way for writers to reach immortality.

Thought flies and words go on foot.

Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.

Loving ourselves is a revolutionary act!

Writers are a product of where we come from but by looking at alternatives to the culture in which we live, we can find ways to change and hopefully improve it.

Good style happens in one of two ways: the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to death to get it.

The next time you get scared, get sacred!

Capote I truly loathed. The way you might loathe an animal. A filthy animal that has found its way into the house.

For a great willpower, no road has length!

If we loved Steve Aylett, really loved him in the way that he deserves, a selfless love that genuinely wanted nothing save his happiness and comfort, we'd lobotomise him.

My father once admonished me to master the laws that govern fine writing until I could weave my words into worlds. If ever I accomplish that feat, I will sign my name to the tale.

If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf.

Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.

Flaubert had infinite correction to perform.

All writers should be put in a box and thrown in the sea.

Grabbing readers by the imagination is a writer's job.

To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.

Autobiography is a preemptive strike against biographers.

Don’t ever trust anyone who’s writing a book. They make up lies for a living.

Writers cannot choose their own mood: with them it is not always hide-tide, nor --thank Heaven!--always Storm.