Book Writers Quotes

Film's thought of as a director's medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It's that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot-the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they've had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve. ~ Billy Wilder

I would like to see more new productions of new material by new composers/lyricists/book writers. I would like to see people take more chances. I think because everything costs so much they're not taking the chances they used to. ~ Harold Prince

I grew up reading the 'Village Voice' and wanting to be one of these multidisciplinary music writers, film writers, book writers. And I lucked out getting a job at the 'Voice' right after college. ~ Colson Whitehead

To write a good book, you must read one book for each page of the book you are about to write. ~ M.F. Moonzajer

That's one thing I like about Hollywood. The writer is there revealed in his ultimate corruption. He asks no praise, because his praise comes to him in the form of a salary check. In Hollywood the average writer is not young, not honest, not brave, and a bit overdressed. But he is darn good company, which book writers as a rule are not. He is better than what he writes. Most book writers are not as good. ~ Raymond Chandler

Sadly, we can't live forever. But we can write something that will. ~ T.N. Suarez

Children's book writers tend to feel quite superior, and adult writers tend to feel they wouldn't know how to write a children's book - which might surprise you because I think a lot of people think it's the other way around. ~ John Boyne

I've probably had my day in the sun. I think I've influenced a lot of comic book writers. ~ Harvey Pekar

A writer observes you far sharply than others and therefore you find your traits in a book. ~ Arvind Parashar

I met a bunch of comic-book writers at the Metropolis convention and there was such an interesting discussion about the story of 'Supergirl' and trying to get it right. It can be a challenge, because you don't want it to be the same as the Superman story. ~ Helen Slater

Meeting writers is usually disappointing, at best. Writers who write sexy thrillers aren't necessarily sexy or thrilling in person. Children's book writers might look more like accountants, or axe murderers for that matter. Horror writers are very rarely scary looking, although they are frequently good cooks. ~ Kelly Link

every word and its sound shall generate the same form in the mind of both the reader and its author ~ R.K. Shailey

God has not any Holy Book; but Man has many Holy Book writers! Producing Holy Books is a cosmic crime against the God! God has not spoken yet! He has been silent for billions of years, because He is out of this universe! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

A mix from the book: "Aren't you going to tell me why you're leaving?" Drake asked. He wasn't growling at her anymore. His voice was as gentle as she supposed one could make gravel."

"I know, but seeing as you view yourself as human, I decided that I have to court you before I can claim you as my mate."

"What, and have you pissed off at me? No thanks. I'd like to have my mate happy."

She still had her purse on her shoulder. "Spend the day with me? ~ Chudney Thomas

A dreary censorship, and self-censorship, has been imposed on books by the centralization of the book industry. ~ Erica Jong

You don't make art out of good intentions. ~ Gustave Flaubert

This book probably makes it seem as if I hate myself and everything I do. I mostly just hate every person I've ever *been*
- Greg Gaines (CHARACTER), Me and Earl and the Dying Girl ~ Jesse Andrews

My study is a converted garage which is largely lined with bookshelves and cardboard boxes filled with manuscripts of my film scripts, plays and books. ~ William Nicholson

Vanity, not love, has been my folly. ~ Jane Austen

So I didn't write this book because I've accomplished something extraordinary. I wrote this book because I've achieved something quite ordinary, which doesn't happen to most kids who grow up like me. You see, I grew up poor, in the Rust Belt, in an Ohio steel town that has been hemorrhaging jobs and hope for as long as I can remember. ~ J.D. Vance

Often writers cast their words out prophetically, as a sorceress might cast a spell, and many times when the words return to you, enclosed between covers, your phantom is so fully fleshed out in its own persona, you don't recognize your own creation. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

I'm always surprised when large numbers of people buy my books. ~ Patricia Cornwell

Romance Of A Youngest Daughter"

Who will wed the Dowager's youngest daughter,
The Captain? filled with ale?
He moored his expected boat to a stake in the water
And stumbled on sea-legs into the Hall for mating,
Only to be seduced by her lady-in-waiting,
Round-bosomed, and not so pale.


Or the thrifty burgher in boots and fancy vest
With considered views of marriage?
By the tidy scullery maid he was impressed
Who kept that house from depreciation and dirt,
But wife does double duty and takes no hurt,
So he rode her home in his carriage.


Never the spare young scholar antiquary
Who was their next resort;
They let him wait in the crypt of the Old Library
And found him compromised with a Saxon book,
Claiming his truelove Learning kept that nook
And promised sweet disport.


Desirée (of a mother's christening) never shall wed
Though fairest child of her womb;
"We will have revenge," her injured Ladyship said,
"Henceforth the tightest nunnery be thy bed
By the topmost stair! When the ill-bred lovers come
We'll say, She is not at home. ~ John Crowe Ransom

People don't tune in to watch network executives' decisions. They don't tune in to watch writers' decisions. They tune in to watch people that they like. ~ Liz Brixius

One of the greatest sins in any story is false suspense. The kind of 'suspense' that disintegrates the moment you give your reader one second to think about it. And it's an easy trap to fall into, so watch carefully for it. If your story hinges on the question, 'Will Superman be pushed so far in his battle against Lex Luthor that he'll have to kill him?', or if your big cliffhanger moment is, 'Wow, is Spider-Man really dead this time?', then I understand Food Lion is hiring. ~ Mark Waid

The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature. ~ C.S. Lewis

I want to make a summing up, brief and to the point, but thorough. I have never suppressed a word in my books out of regard for other people and their prejudices. ~ John Henry Mackay

'Alpha' is a very fast-moving book. It doesn't lend itself to laborious introspection and the navel-gazing that some stories can fall prey to. ~ Greg Rucka

It's your turn to stop struggling to make a living writing and make your writing dreams come true. ~ Leigh Shulman

I write what I want to write. Period. I don't write novels-for-hire using media tie-in characters, I don't write suspense novels or thrillers. I write horror. And if no one wants to buy my books, I'll just keep writing them until they do sell
and get a job at Taco Bell in the meantime. ~ Bentley Little

The worth of a book is a matter of expressed juices. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

i will be sending yhe copies of my book to the winners within two weeks just waiting for copies from create space to arrive ~ Peter Fryer

The true investor scarcely ever is forced to sell his shares, and at all other times he is free to disregard the current price quotation. He need pay attention to it and act upon it only to the extent that it suits his book, and no more.* Thus the investor who permits himself to be stampeded or unduly worried by unjustified market declines in his holdings is perversely transforming his basic advantage into a basic disadvantage. That man would be better off if his stocks had no market quotation at all, for he would then be spared the mental anguish caused him by other persons' mistakes of judgment. ~ Benjamin Graham

I'm guessing this isn't the new JR Ward novel," I said, taking out a large book with an old fabric covering. "Armstrong Line doesn't really sound like one of her titles. Maybe Strong Armed Lover, but that's not quite the same."

Michelle's eyes narrowed from where she stood above me. "Aren't you a little young to be reading JR Ward?"
"Aren't I a little young to be attempting to overthrow a centuries old government?"
"Touché. ~ Tammy Blackwell

There's far more truth in the Book of Genesis than in the quantum theory. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

It seems that, depending upon which side of the thesaurus-writer's gaze we sit, one's uniqueness can be deemed to be either eccentric or distinctive. Both, in my opinion, are good. ~ Fennel Hudson

He likes to know things. He checks out book and record collections when he visits people, looks in medicine cabinets, takes inventory in refrigerators. He eaves drops on conversations at public phone booths. He reads murder victims' mail. ~ John Sayles

Sara Scherr and Jeff McNeely have given us a thoughtful, sensible book about a topic of great importance to the world. There is no food security, no poverty reduction, no environmental sustainability without transforming our agricultural practices. The book ?presents well documented cases of best practices from all over the world. It should be required reading for all concerned with agriculture, the environment, food security or just the future of our children. ~ Ismail Serageldin

I can't imagine I could have become the person I am now without books. Books became synonymous with freedom. They showed that you could open doors and walk through. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Being an author, writing a book was great fun. Publishing and marketing, not so fun. ~ Wynne Stevens

An author is somebody who writes a story. It doesn't matter if you're a kid or if you're a grown-up, it doesn't matter if the book gets published and lots of people get to read it, or if you make just one copy and you share that book with one friend. ~ Jarrett J. Krosoczka

Even today, I hunt for the fabulous books that will change me utterly. I find myself happiest in the middle of a book which I forget that I am reading, but am instead immersed in a made-up life lived at the highest pitch. ~ Pat Conroy

There is real hope for a culture that makes it as easy to buy a book as it does a pack of cigarettes."--a civic leader quoted in a New American Library ad (1951) American Pulp tells the story of the midcentury golden age of pulp paperbacks and how they brought modernism to Main Street, democratized literature and ideas, spurred social mobility, and helped readers fashion new identities. ~ Paula Rabinowitz

I believe that the writers of Genesis had detected the inherent selfishness in human nature that I propose is in our genes, and invented the myth of original sin to account for it. It's an image. I am not acting as an exegete - I don't interpret scripture. ~ Christian De Duve

My longest love affair: with a book. ~ Rebecca Mead

Writers are not nice people. We can't be. ~ Jo Walton

If you read only the best, you will have no need of reading the other books, because the latter are nothing but a rehash of the best and the oldest. To read Shakespeare, Plato, Dante, Milton, Spenser, Chaucer, and their compeers in prose, is to read in condensed form what all others have diluted. ~ Anna Brackett

When you steal a book, you steal from the world. the Library propaganda said ~ Rachel Caine

He was not thinking of Maddie I-Live-To-Make-Your-Life-Miserable Freemont in terms of sexuality. He was not attracted to her in the least. Period and exclamation point. ~ Kelly Moran

Once upon a time a Georgian printed a couple of books that attracted notice, but immediately it turned out that he was little more than an amanuensis for the local blacks
that his works were really the products, not of white Georgia, but of black Georgia. Writing afterward as a white man, he swiftly subsided into the fifth rank. ~ Joel Chandler Harris

What keeps me awake at the wheel is the thrill of trying something completely new with each book. I'm not a risk-taker in life, generally speaking, but as a writer I definitely choose the fast car, the impossible rock face, the free fall. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I think the pleasure of completed work is what makes blogging so popular. You have to believe most bloggers have few if any actual readers. The writers are in it for other reasons. Blogging is like work, but without coworkers thwarting you at every turn. All you get is the pleasure of a completed task. ~ Scott Adams

Whoever you be, O my reader-
friend, foe- I wish with you
to part at present as a pal.
Farewell. Whatever you in my wake
sought in these careless strophes-
tumultuous recollections,
relief from labors,
live pictures or bons mots,
or faults of grammar-
God grant that you,
in this book,
for recreation, for the daydream,
for the heart, for jousts in journals,
may find at least a crumb.
Upon which, let us part, farewell! ~ Alexander Pushkin

There's nothing definite yet. Of course, any time you have a book, there's going to be book signings and stuff. We'll do bookstores that handle both audio and video. And some of the stores want to have the CDs available at the same time. So that part looks real good. ~ Scotty Moore

Every writer's difficult journey is a movement from silence to speech. We must be intensely private and interior in order to find a voice and a vision - and we must bring our work to an outside world where the market, or public outrage, or even government censorship can destroy our voice. ~ Sara Paretsky

there exists a deep gulf between genius and the teaching profession. Anyone with a touch of genius seems to his teachers a freak from the very first. As far as teachers are concerned, they define young geniuses as those who are bad, disrespectful, smoke at fourteen, fall in love at fifteen, can be found at sixteen hanging out in bars, read forbidden books, write scandalous essays, occasionally stare down a teacher in class, are marked in the attendance book as rebels, and are budding candidates for room-arrest. A school master will prefer to have a couple of dumbheads in class than a […] genius. […] His task is not to produce extravagant intellectuals but good Latinists, arimeticians and sober decent folk. […] We have the consolation that among true geniuses the wounds always heal. […] they create their art in spite of school. Once dead and enveloped by the comfortable nimbus of remoteness, they are paraded by the schoolmasters before other generations of students as showpieces and noble examples. […] [T]ime and again the ones who are detested by their teachers […] are afterwards the ones who add to society's treasure. ~ Hermann Hesse

You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content. ~ Knut Hamsun

This book is entirely dedicated to my wife, Robin Sullivan.
Some have asked how it is I write such strong women without resorting to putting swords in their hands. It is because of her.
She is Arista.
She is Thrace.
She is Modina.
She is Amilia.
And she is my Gwen.
This series has been a tribute to her.
This is your book, Robin.
I hope you don't mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is while you're in the world.
ELTON JOHN, BERNIE TAUPIN ~ Michael J. Sullivan

Living in a cultural milieu where the foreign writers most widely available and admired were Russian, I came very late to postwar American writers, and I had great trouble with the canonically exalted white male writers I tried first. ~ Pankaj Mishra