American Writer Quotes

Regardless if a person likes my book I've earned the title: An American Writer. ~ Jonathan Heatt

It's been so long since a talented writer last occupied the White House; no wonder, then, that American writers have been among the most prominent of all the demographic groups claiming a piece of Barack Obama for themselves. ~ Jonathan Raban

It is in this matter that I fall foul of so many American writers on writing; they seem to think that writing is a confidence game by means of which the author cajoles a restless, dull-witted, shallow audience into hearing his point of view. Such an attitude is base, and can only beget base prose. ~ Robertson Davies

Today, in front of a slew of white authors, during a fellowship, with a drink in my hand, I said that I was untouchable. There was a gasp, and maybe it was a hundred years of work for my name to arrive here, where I can name my pain so well that people are afraid of the consequences and the power. ~ Terese Marie Mailhot

Maybe just as many women writers as male writers could be billed as the next great American writer by their publisher. Maybe book criticism sections could review an equal amount of female and male writers. Maybe Oprah could start putting some books by women authors in her book club, since most of her audience is women. ~ Jami Attenberg

Painters, especially American painters since the Second World War, have been much more troubled, beset by formal perplexity, than American writers. They've been a laboratory for everybody. ~ Donald Barthelme

All of the guests on 'Faces of America' were deeply moved by what we revealed about their ancestry. We were able to trace the ancestry of Native American writer Louise Erdrich back to 438 A.D. We found that Queen Noor is descended from royalty, and that's before she married King Hussein of Jordan. ~ Henry Louis Gates

We are all tied to a lineage of love that has existed since time immemorial. Even if we haven't had a direct experience of that love, we know that it exists and has made an indelible imprint on our souls. It's remarkable to think that the entire span of human life exists within each one of us, going all the way back to the hands of the Creator. In our bodies we carry the blood of our ancestors and the seeds of the future generations. We are a living conduit to all life. When we contemplate the vastness of the interwoven network that we are tied to, our individual threads of life seem far less fragile. We are strengthened by who we come from and inspired by the those who will follow. ~ Sacred Instructions; Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change. ~ Sherri Mitchell Weh'na Ha'mu Kwasset

The Guild is the authoritative voice of American writers. ~ Scott Turow

It was always a false assumption that white American writers cannot write novels about race unless they're approaching it from a very oblique angle. ~ Jess Row

To an American writer, I should think it must be a flattering distinction to escape the admiration of the newspapers. ~ Frances Trollope

He lay beside me all those years while I turned and twisted myself to fit beside him... ~ Elaine Kraf

When success happens to an English writer, he acquires a new typewriter. When success happens to an American writer, he acquires a new life. ~ Martin Amis

Just read The Virtue of Minding Your Own Business. Oh my, what currents run deep! Beautifully seen, beautifully told. Praise praise praise ... Pardon my French, but you are one darn major American writer!
Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions, on Sandcastle and Other Stories ~ Richard Bach

Every time I make American film I just trust American directors and American writers. ~ Jackie Chan

Well ... yes, and here we go again. But before we get to The Work, as it were, I want to make sure I know how to cope with this elegant typewriter - (and, yes, it appears that I do) - so why not make this quick list of my life's work and then get the hell out of town on the 11:05 to Denver? Indeed. Why not? But for just a moment I'd like to say, for the permanent record, that it is a very strange feeling to be a 40-year-old American writer in this century and sitting alone in this huge building on Fifth Avenue in New York at one o'clock in the morning on the night before Christmas Eve, 2000 miles from home, and compiling a table of contents for a book of my own Collected Works in an office with a tall glass door that leads out to a big terrace looking down on The Plaza Fountain. Very strange. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers. ~ Toni Morrison

I was too prissy, too refined, too abstemious, too French to be a good American writer. ~ Edmund White

Passion such as hers is all consent, asking little in return. I had merely to enter a room where she was to see her face take on that peaceful expression of one who is resting in bed. If I touched her, I had the impression that all the blood in her veins was turning to honey. ~ Marguerite Yourcenar

The American writer is a very pampered figure - by foundations, by fellowships, by publishing advances. Even though I am not American, I have been pampered enough myself to know how it can make your life too frictionless. ~ Pankaj Mishra

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."
~ (1919-), American writer, producer, humorist. ~ Andy Rooney

Mother Earth is our first teacher. She has informed us that oneness does not equal sameness. She shows us this through the harmonious balance that is held in the rich biodiversity that exists within our world. To achieve oneness we must transcend our differences and embrace the integration of every individual aspect of humanity into the whole, knowing that all healthy systems are comprised of complexity and an abundance of diversity. ~ Sherri Mitchell Weh'na Ha'mu Kwasset

When all is said and done, later in this century, and in the next one, and the century after that, it will be understood that. . .the greatest American writer of our time was James M. Cain. ~ Arlene Sanders

There are dozens of great American writers who write about the family. ~ William Nicholson

I don't think the isolation of the American writer is a tradition; it's more that, geographically, he just is isolated, unless he happens to live in New York City. But I don't suppose there's a small town around the country that doesn't have a writer. ~ Nelson Algren

There was no audience for my books. The Indians didn't regard me as an Indian and North Americans couldn't conceive of me of a North American writer, not being white and brought up on wheat germ. My fiction got lost. ~ Bharati Mukherjee

I'm a writer. In Latin America, they say I'm a Latin-American writer because I also write in Spanish and my books are translated, but I am an American citizen and my books are published here, so I'm also an American writer. ~ Isabel Allende

There's something with the physical size of America ... American writers can write about America and it can still feel like a foreign country. ~ Mark Haddon

If I had my way we'd sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes. ~ William S. Burroughs

During World War II, Joseph Stalin was once asked by an American writer, according to Professor Dean Russell, how he could justify conscripting all the property of all the people for use by the government to fight the war. Stalin answered by asking why they considered it more immoral and illogical to conscript lifeless property than to conscript life itself, as was being done in the United States and all other capitalistic countries. His American challenger had no answer, because there was no answer. ~ Ron Paul

My friend, Dennis Mathis, was reading Eastern European and Japanese experimental writers, and I brought the Latin American writers to his attention, so we exchanged books and bounced off one another. ~ Sandra Cisneros

The English tourist in American literature wants above all things something different from what he has at home. For this reason the one American writer whom the English whole-heartedly admire is Walt Whitman. There, you will hear them say, is the real American undisguised. In the whole of English literature there is no figure which resembles his - among all our poetry none in the least comparable to Leaves of Grass ~ Virginia Woolf

INFRACANINOPHILE. One who habitually champions the underdog. The creation of American writer Christopher Morley (1890–1957). ~ Paul Dickson

Chesler cites the claim by the Palestinian American writer Suha Sabbagh that Western feminists, simply by writing about Muslim women, exert "a greater degree of domination" over those women "than that actually exercised by men over women within Muslim culture." A brown woman in (say) some Pakistani village, then, is actually more oppressed by some white woman tapping away at a computer at some American university she's never heard of than by a man who's beating and raping her in her home. ~ Bruce Bawer

The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels. ~ Rex Stout

It seems to me that you are better off, as a writer and as an American, in a small town than you'd be in New York. I thoroughly detest New York, though I have to go there very often ... Have you ever noticed that no American writer of any consequence lives in Manhattan? Dreiser tried it (after many years in the Bronx), but finally moved to California. ~ H.L. Mencken

The sky never falls with the rain.
It is never weighed down by all that
it carries. It takes all of its anchors
and turns them into stars.
Learn from this. ~ D. Antoinette Foy

Science fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things that the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two together. ~ Ray Bradbury

I moved to Holland because I wanted to see American art. ~ Marlene Dumas

I don't know of any American playwrights who earn the bulk of their living writing plays. Many of the older ones teach, while a growing number of younger ones write for series television. ~ Terry Teachout

A famous writer who wants to continue writing has to be constantly defending himself against fame. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

To be a great writer, you must be nomadic. I'd recommend the hunter/gatherer lifestyle for anybody serious about being nonsensical. ~ Jarod Kintz

A little righteous anger really brings out the best in the American personality. Our nation was born when 56 patriots got mad enough to sign the Declaration of Independence. We put a man on the moon because Sputnik made us mad at being number two in space. Getting mad in a constructive way is good for the soul- and the country. ~ Lee Iacocca

I go to bed at night worrying that I didn't do enough that day to make sure I protect the American people. ~ John O. Brennan

Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles. ~ Black Elk

Some 70% to 80% of all who join the military will return to the civilian workforce. They'll return to communities, and one of the things I've worried about is the increasing disconnect between the American people and our men and women in uniform. We come from fewer and fewer places. We're less than 1% of the population. ~ Michael Mullen

Wherever a writer grew up, they're obviously influenced by that area, and I'm sure their characters are pulled from those experiences. ~ Jim Rash

When a writer tries to copy another writer, it's doomed to fail. ~ Sophie Hannah

At the end of the day I am a writer, and if I don't take care of this, no one else will. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

I had a fantasy as a child that I might be a writer someday. I always thought that meant you went to New York or Paris. But after that intense summer, I never thought that I wanted to live any place but Chicago. It also made me see what the stakes were in the civil rights movement. And it made me see what real hatred was like and the forms that it took. But it also made me understand how powerless ordinary people feel in their lives. ~ Sara Paretsky

Right now, I'm as single as a slice of American cheese. ~ Nick Cannon

Consider the statistics that African American Males are stopped by the police more often, convicted for crimes more often and draw prison more often and draw longer prison sentences more often than their white counterparts. ~ The Prophet Of Life

Christine Gray wrote in her remarkable 1986 PhD dissertation, Thailand: The Soteriological State in the 1970s: Any study of contemporary Thai society must account for the U.S. influence on that polity and the mutual denial of that influence. Thailand's relationship with the United States is complex, heavily disguised and, in many instances, actively denied by the leaders of both countries... In many cases, it is difficult if not impossible to determine the extent of American influence in Thailand. Thailand is a nation of secrets: of secret bombings and air bases during the Vietnam War, of secret military pacts and aid agreements, of secret business transactions and secret ownership of businesses and joint venture corporations. This is precisely the point; the American presence has taken on powerful cosmological, religious and even mythic overtones. The American influence on the Thai economy and polity has become a symbol of uncertainty, of men's inability to know the truth. ~ Andrew MacGregor Marshall

We have become the new american slaves: but there is a revolution coming. It is a revolution of individual liberty. It will free us without violence. It will begin with the self. It will spread to the workplace. It will turn our corporate masters into our servants. It will free us of government's tyranny. The revolution will spread to all corners of the nation, and at last, we shall be free. ~ Gerry Spence

St. Augustine is not only the oldest continuously-occupied European settlement on the American continent, it is also perhaps the most haunted city in the United States. Seemingly every spot in this city has some ghostly hidden history, right below the surface. Just by strolling through the historic streets you can hear the whispers of the long-dead. ~ James Caskey

He had been making an unsuccessful effort to write something about nothing in particular ~ Aldous Huxley

'St. Elmo's Fire' is one of my favorite films. I like the storytelling of those teenage American films. You don't get that now. Teenage American movies are all about sick jokes, puking a lot, arse jokes. ~ James McAvoy

If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way - of survival of the fittest. ~ Ray Kroc

If I didn't fear I'd do you harm...I'd try to make you an atheist. I really do think that you are a deluded follower of mistaken and superstitious and cowardly theories. That's as far as I'll go....Everyone who worships a god worships a force back of all nature, no matter what they call him or it and even if they call his aspects by different names & have many "gods." If there really is such a force, then all people who worship any god or gods, worship the same god. I'd just as soon call him Ishtar or Baal or Jehovah. They're merely names for the same idea. (Letter from Simpson to Anne Roe, written ca. 1920-21, when Anne was briefly flirting with fundamentalist Christianity, American Philosophical Society archives.) ~ George Gaylord Simpson

I didn't go looking to marry an American, it just kinda happened like that. ~ Kate Beckinsale

Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place. ~ Noam Chomsky

The question one asks of the young writer who wants to
know if he's got what it takes is this: "Is writing novels what
you want to do? Really want to do?"
If the young writer answers, "Yes," then all one can say is:
Do it. In fact, he will anyway. ~ John Gardner

I believe as well that - that American strength is - is essential economic strength, family and value strength, military strength is essential for our own good that these things not only help secure peace for other people but preserve peace for us and - and promise greater prosperity for America. ~ Mitt Romney

'Buncha Losers' comedy is one of those homegrown American art forms, up there with infomercials and Elvis-shaped soap carvings. No other civilization could have invented it. The French took a stab with Sartre's 'No Exit,' but then they had to ruin it with a lesson at the end. ~ Rob Sheffield

How historians explain time is one thing, but how we live time is quite another. ~ Andre Aciman

The American idea is as promising, imaginative, and full of the unexpected as the land itself. The land represents freedom - the frontier, the ability to make a new future with your own bare hands. ~ Anna Deavere Smith

Through educational programming, Jewish American History Month will help raise the awareness of a people, their history and contributions. It will help combat anti-Semitism, a phenomenon that is on the rise and that unfortunately still exists in our Nation. ~ Jan Schakowsky

This assignment could damn well project all the words across my face and the ink stain my hands a gory mess before I finished it. ~ Jazz Feylynn

A writer walks in nature to wonder. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Patriotism is not 'my country right or wrong'; patriotism means loving the ideals for which America stands and having the courage to speak up when these ideals are distorted for personal or political gain. The American government was instituted to be the servant of the people, not our master. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

To believe what?" "To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith: 'that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.' For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him; but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe. ~ Bram Stoker

Today is your wright-time. Anything worth writing will be, or has been written already. A great story chooses its writer lest no wright should boast. Just write! If you don't, you will come right in contact with your thoughts someplace soon. ~ Amah Lambert

I read the Scriptures at the American Cathedral on Christmas and Easter; that's it. It's a task I love. ~ Olivia De Havilland

The American people are pretty impressive in their ability to keep after something if they think it is doable. ~ Paul Wolfowitz

Three words that still have meaning, that I think we can apply to all professional writing, are discovery, originality, invention.The professional writer discovers some aspect of the world and invents out of the speech of his time some particularly apt and original way of putting it down on paper. ~ John Dos Passos

It's not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, 'Read,' but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, 'Don't read, don't think, just write,' and the result could be a mountain of drivel. If you're going to be a writer you'll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think 'There must be something else people do,' you won't quite be able to quit. ~ Alice Munro

Being a Sikh meant having to do what Mom and Dad said, and going to temple, and Mom and Dad choosing who I would marry. But going to an American school taught me that I was the one who's supposed to make those choices. ~ Sheena Iyengar

The phenomenon of home schooling is a wonderful example of the American can-do attitude. Growing numbers of parents have become disenchanted with government-run public schools. Many parents have simply taken matters into their own hands, literally. ~ Steve Forbes