• Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.

  

  Jean de la Bruyère

  French1645 · 17th century

  3.0 · 55 votes · 34 reads

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• Most authors steal their works, or buy.

  

  Alexander Pope

  PoetEnglish1688 · 17th century

  3.4 · 52 votes · 74 reads

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• Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use.

  

  Mark Twain

  WriterAmerican1835 · 19th century

  4.5 · 14 votes · 170 reads

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

  C

  Clifton Fadiman

  WriterAmerican1904 · 20th century

  3.0 · 19 votes · 166 reads

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• My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise Writerwrites for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.

  A

  Anonymous

  4.9 · 35 votes · 132 reads

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• Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the Writerto the reader.

  

  Joseph Joubert

  French1754 · 18th century

  5.0 · 34 votes · 88 reads

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

  

  Jean Paul

  ComedianGerman1763 · 18th century

  3.5 · 19 votes · 174 reads

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• No one who cannot limit himself has ever been able to write.

  N

  Nicola Abbagnano

  PhilosopherItaly1901 · 20th century

  4.7 · 20 votes · 133 reads

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• No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination.

  

  James Joyce

  AuthorIrish1882 · 19th century

  3.8 · 57 votes · 140 reads

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• No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.

  W

  W. C. Fields

  ComedianAmerican1880 · 19th century

  3.3 · 19 votes · 92 reads

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• Nothing contributes to the entertainment of the reader more, than the change of times and the vicissitudes of fortune.

  

  Marcus Tulius Cicero

  PoliticianRoman-106 · 2nd century BC

  5.0 · 38 votes · 142 reads

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• Nothing so fretful, so despicable as a Scribbler, see what I am, and what a parcel of Scoundrels I have brought about my ears, and what language I have been obliged to treat them with to deal with them in their own way; - all this comes of Authorship.

  

  Lord Byron

  PoetBritish1788 · 18th century

  4.6 · 64 votes · 101 reads

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• Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market.

  E

  Ezra Pound

  PoetAmerican1885 · 19th century

  3.7 · 60 votes · 90 reads

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• Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.

  G

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  ScientistGerman1742 · 18th century

  3.4 · 16 votes · 189 reads

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• 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.

  

  Jonathan Swift

  WriterIrish1667 · 17th century

  4.7 · 11 votes · 70 reads

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• Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.

  

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  WriterGerman1844 · 19th century

  3.0 · 30 votes · 193 reads

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• Often I think writing is a sheer paring away of oneself leaving always something thinner, barer, more meager.

  A

  Anonymous

  4.7 · 19 votes · 103 reads

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• On the day when a young Writercorrects his first proof-sheet he is as proud as a schoolboy who has just got his first dose of pox.

  

  Charles Baudelaire

  PoetFrench1821 · 19th century

  3.2 · 5 votes · 178 reads

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• One gains universal applause who mingles the useful with the agreeable, at once delighting and instructing the reader.

  

  Horace

  PoetRoman-65 · 1st century BC

  3.7 · 35 votes · 156 reads

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• Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.

  

  Ernest Hemingway

  WriterAmerican1899 · 19th century

  4.6 · 33 votes · 14 reads

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

  

  Susan Sontag

  AuthorAmerican1933 · 20th century

  3.1 · 54 votes · 180 reads

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• Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.

  W

  W. C. Fields

  ComedianAmerican1880 · 19th century

  3.8 · 13 votes · 44 reads

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• Sometimes people try to read into my strip and find out what my state of mind is. And I can say if I'm in a good mood, generally the comic strip starts out in a good mood, but the punchline is very negative and sour.

  

  Matt Groening

  CartoonistAmerican1954 · 20th century

  3.7 · 39 votes · 122 reads

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• Style may defined as the proper words in the proper places.

  

  Jonathan Swift

  WriterIrish1667 · 17th century

  4.5 · 42 votes · 135 reads

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• Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.

  

  Alexander Pope

  PoetEnglish1688 · 17th century

  4.1 · 51 votes · 116 reads

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• The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life: try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!

  R

  Robert Bresson

  Film directorFrench1901 · 20th century

  3.4 · 58 votes · 111 reads

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• 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.

  

  Stendhal

  NovelistFrench1783 · 18th century

  4.1 · 22 votes · 77 reads

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• The best stories in our culture have some sort of subversiveness - Mark Twain, 'Catcher in the Rye.' You provide kids with great stories and teach them how to use the tools to make their own.

  

  Matt Groening

  CartoonistAmerican1954 · 20th century

  3.9 · 61 votes · 35 reads

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• The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.

  

  William Faulkner

  WriterAmerican1897 · 19th century

  4.7 · 60 votes · 92 reads

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• The creations of a great Writerare little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.

  

  William Blake

  PainterBritish1757 · 18th century

  4.0 · 60 votes · 80 reads

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

  

  John Steinbeck

  WriterAmerican1902 · 20th century

  3.1 · 17 votes · 123 reads

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• The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

  

  Samuel Johnson

  AuthorBritish1709 · 18th century

  3.5 · 49 votes · 55 reads

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• The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first.

  

  Blaise Pascal

  PhilosopherFrench1623 · 17th century

  3.0 · 50 votes · 108 reads

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

  

  George Bernard Shaw

  WriterIrish1856 · 19th century

  4.6 · 61 votes · 68 reads

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• The most essential gift for a good Writeris a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.

  

  Ernest Hemingway

  WriterAmerican1899 · 19th century

  4.4 · 56 votes · 150 reads

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• The older author is constantly rediscovering himself in the more or less fossilized productions of his earlier years.

  

  Oliver Wendell Holmes

  AuthorAmerican1809 · 19th century

  3.0 · 52 votes · 63 reads

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• The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.

  

  Samuel Beckett

  WriterIrish1906 · 20th century

  4.9 · 39 votes · 170 reads

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• The pen is mightier than the sword.

  E

  Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

  PoliticianBritish1803 · 19th century

  3.9 · 46 votes · 141 reads

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

  

  John Steinbeck

  WriterAmerican1902 · 20th century

  4.1 · 42 votes · 193 reads

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• The responsibility of a Writeris to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

  J

  James Baldwin

  WriterAmerican1924 · 20th century

  3.3 · 26 votes · 147 reads

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• The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.

  

  Horace

  PoetRoman-65 · 1st century BC

  3.1 · 27 votes · 156 reads

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• The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.

  

  Charles Caleb Colton

  AuthorBritish1780 · 18th century

  4.7 · 63 votes · 175 reads

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• The tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.

  W

  William Cowper

  PoetBritish1731 · 18th century

  3.3 · 8 votes · 140 reads

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

  

  George Sand

  WriterFrench1804 · 19th century

  4.2 · 42 votes · 21 reads

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• The trouble began with Forster. After him it was considered ungentlemanly to write more than five or six novels.

  A

  Anthony Burgess

  AuthorEnglish1917 · 20th century

  3.1 · 61 votes · 74 reads

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• The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

  

  W. H. Auden

  PoetEnglish1907 · 20th century

  5.0 · 64 votes · 136 reads

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• The Writeris either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one; or both. Usually both.

  

  Stendhal

  NovelistFrench1783 · 18th century

  3.6 · 61 votes · 65 reads

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• The Writeris more concerned to know than to judge.

  

  W. H. Auden

  PoetEnglish1907 · 20th century

  3.4 · 64 votes · 11 reads

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• The Writermay very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.

  

  Karl Marx

  EconomistGerman1818 · 19th century

  4.6 · 7 votes · 47 reads

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• The Writermust write what he has to say, not speak it.

  

  Ernest Hemingway

  WriterAmerican1899 · 19th century

  4.1 · 50 votes · 163 reads

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• There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.

  

  W. H. Auden

  PoetEnglish1907 · 20th century

  3.3 · 39 votes · 174 reads

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

  C

  Clifton Fadiman

  WriterAmerican1904 · 20th century

  4.3 · 11 votes · 154 reads

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• 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

  

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  PoetAmerican1803 · 19th century

  4.5 · 57 votes · 76 reads

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• There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typeWriterand bleed.

  

  Ernest Hemingway

  WriterAmerican1899 · 19th century

  4.9 · 25 votes · 83 reads

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• There is something about the literary life that repels me, all this desperate building of castles on cobwebs, the long-drawn acrimonious struggle to make something important which we all know will be gone forever in a few years, the miasma of failure whic

  

  Raymond Chandler

  WriterAmerican1888 · 19th century

  4.5 · 42 votes · 174 reads

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• They can't yank a novelist like they can a pitcher. A novelist has to go the full nine, even if it kills him.

  

  Ernest Hemingway

  WriterAmerican1899 · 19th century

  4.1 · 59 votes · 170 reads

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• This is something that I cannot get over - that a whole line could be written by half a man, that a work could be built on the quicksand of a character.

  

  Karl Kraus

  WriterAustrian1874 · 19th century

  4.0 · 48 votes · 116 reads

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• This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again.

  

  Oscar Wilde

  PoetIrish1854 · 19th century

  3.4 · 62 votes · 83 reads

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• To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.

  

  Lord Byron

  PoetBritish1788 · 18th century

  3.1 · 37 votes · 106 reads

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• To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do.

  

  Aristotle

  PhilosopherGreek-384 · 4th century BC

  4.2 · 32 votes · 197 reads

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• To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.

  

  Charles Caleb Colton

  AuthorBritish1780 · 18th century

  3.1 · 20 votes · 69 reads

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• True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence. The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

  

  Alexander Pope

  PoetEnglish1688 · 17th century

  4.0 · 7 votes · 139 reads

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• Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.

  

  Gabriel García Márquez

  WriterColombian1927 · 20th century

  5.0 · 19 votes · 173 reads

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• We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

  

  Ernest Hemingway

  WriterAmerican1899 · 19th century

  3.2 · 38 votes · 186 reads

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• We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print.

  

  Vincent van Gogh

  PainterDutch1853 · 19th century

  4.3 · 45 votes · 84 reads

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

  

  Seneca

  PhilosopherRoman-4 · 1st century BC

  4.4 · 7 votes · 122 reads

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

  S

  Saint Thomas Aquinas

  TheologianRoman1224 · 13th century

  4.8 · 42 votes · 51 reads

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• Why did I write? What sin to me unknown dipped me in ink, my parents , or my own?

  

  Alexander Pope

  PoetEnglish1688 · 17th century

  4.9 · 33 votes · 67 reads

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• Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.

  

  Walter Bagehot

  EconomistBritish1826 · 19th century

  3.6 · 60 votes · 181 reads

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• Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.

  

  Mark Twain

  WriterAmerican1835 · 19th century

  4.7 · 59 votes · 136 reads

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

  S

  Saint Thomas Aquinas

  TheologianRoman1224 · 13th century

  3.4 · 60 votes · 43 reads

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

  

  John Steinbeck

  WriterAmerican1902 · 20th century

  4.3 · 41 votes · 15 reads

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• Writers are the main landmarks of the past.

  E

  Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

  PoliticianBritish1803 · 19th century

  3.7 · 51 votes · 5 reads

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• Writers aren't people exactly. Or, if they're any good, they're a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person. It's like actors, who try so pathetically not to look in mirrors. Who lean back ward trying - only to see their faces in the reflecting

  A

  Anonymous

  4.7 · 16 votes · 104 reads

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• Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.

  

  Walt Whitman

  PoetAmerican1819 · 19th century

  4.1 · 41 votes · 16 reads

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• Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

  N

  Niels Bohr

  PhysicistDanish1885 · 19th century

  3.3 · 12 votes · 115 reads

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• Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

  

  Thomas Carlyle

  WriterBritish1795 · 18th century

  3.8 · 49 votes · 158 reads

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• 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.

  

  Francoise Sagan

  WriterFrench1935 · 20th century

  3.5 · 33 votes · 73 reads

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• Writing is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and

  

  Winston Churchill

  PoliticianBritish1874 · 19th century

  3.4 · 53 votes · 168 reads

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• Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

  I

  Iris Murdoch

  NovelistBritish1919 · 20th century

  3.8 · 42 votes · 0 reads

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