Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
—E. L. Doctorow (b.1931) American Writer, Editor, Academic
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.
—E. L. Doctorow (b.1931) American Writer, Editor, Academic
The first essential in writing about anything is that the writer should have no experience of the matter.
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Catholic Mathematician, Physicist, Inventor, Philosopher, Writer
I wrote a poem to the moon
But no one noticed it;
Although I hoped that late or soon
Someone would praise a bit
Its purity and grace forlone,
Its beauty tulip-cool…
But as my poem died still-born,
I felt a fool.
I wrote a verse of vulgar trend
Spiced with an oath or two;
I tacked a snapper at the end
And called it Dan McGrew.
I spouted it to bar-room boys,
Full fifty years away;
Yet still with rude and ribald noise
It lives today.
‘Tis bitter truth, but there you are-
That’s how a name is made;
Write of a rose, a lark, a star,
You’ll never make the grade.
But write of gutter and of grime,
Of pimp and prostitute,
The multitude will read your rhyme,
And pay to boot.
So what’s the use to burn and bleed
And strive for beauty’s sake?
No one your poetry will read,
Your heart will only break.
But set your song in vulgar pitch,
If rhyme you will not rue,
And make your heroine a bitch…
Like Lady Lou.
—Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Scottish Poet, Author
I know nothing about pistols and revolvers, which is why I usually kill off my characters with a blunt instrument or better with poisons. Besides, poisons are neat and clean and really exciting… I do not think I could look a really ghastly mangled body in the face. It is the means that I am interested in. I do not usually describe the end, which is often a corpse.
—Agatha Christie (1890–1976) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
I am always interested in why young people become writers, and from talking with many I have concluded that most do not want to be writers working eight and ten hours a day and accomplishing little; they want to have been writers, garnering the rewards of having completed a best-seller. They aspire to the rewards of writing but not to the travail.
—James A. Michener (1907–97) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Historian
If writers were good businessmen, they’d have too much sense to be writers.
—Irvin S. Cobb (1876–1944) American Humorist, Short Story Writer, Columnist
Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure.
—Oliver Herford (1863–1935) American Writer, Artist, Illustrator
The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals; or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.
—Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) Italian Dramatist, Novelist, Short Story Writer, Author
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
A good writer is basically a story-teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–91) Polish-born American Children’s Books Writer, Novelist, Short Story Writer
Afraid lest he be caught up in a net of words, tripped up, bewildered and so defeated
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American Poet, Novelist, Cultural Historian
Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.
—Harold Pinter (1930–2008) British Playwright
A writer needs three things: experience, observation, and imagination—any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
Every writer hopes or boldly assumes that his life is in some sense exemplary, that the particular will turn out to be universal.
—Martin Amis (b.1949) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.
—Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American Novelist, Poet
There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there’s only narrative.
—E. L. Doctorow (b.1931) American Writer, Editor, Academic
Novels are longer than life.
—Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972) American Playwright, Poet, Novelist
I think of an author as somebody who goes into the marketplace and puts down his rug and says, “I will tell you a story,” and then he passes the hat.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canada Journalist, Playwright, Academic, Critic, Novelist
Although most of us know Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Paul Gauguin in Tahiti as if they were neighbors — somewhat disreputable but endlessly fascinating — none of us can name two French generals or department store owners of that period. I take enormous pride in considering myself an artist, one of the necessaries.
—James A. Michener (1907–97) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Historian
Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent.
—E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist
Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
I have used these weeks to revalue values. Do you understand this expression?. When you come right down to it, the alchemist is the most praiseworthy of men: I mean the one who changes something negligible or contemptible into something of value, even gold. He alone enriches, the others merely exchange. My task is quite singular this time: I have asked myself what mankind has always hated, feared, and despised the most.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
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.
—Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French Philosopher, Psychoanalyst, Poet
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
Every writer “creates” his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
A writer needs loneliness, and he gets his share of it. He needs love, and he gets shared and also unshared love. He needs friendship. In fact, he needs the universe. To be a writer is, in a sense, to be a day-dreamer – to be living a kind of double life.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.
—Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832) English Angelic Priest, Writer, Collector
Rereading this novel today, replaying the moves of its plot, I feel rather like Anderssen fondly recalling his sacrifice of both Rooks to the unfortunate and noble Kieseritsky
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-born American Novelist
We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind — mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer’s task is to invent the reality.
—J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) English Novelist, Short Story Writer
Only two classes of books are of universal appeal. The very best and the very worst.
—Ford Madox Ford (1873