Danish Writer Quotes

Why the Kikuyu, who personally have so little fear of death, should be so terrified to touch a corpse, while the white people, who are afraid to die, handle the dead easily, I do not know. Here once more you feel their reality to be different from our realities. ~ Karen Blixen

The received image of a writer is that of an unproductive sensitive who suffers from the vapors, is enslaved by his gonads, falls victim to romantic swoons and passes out at deadlines. ~ George V. Higgins

As the death of the writer exaggerates the role of his work, the death of a person exaggerates the role of his effect on us. ~ Albert Camus

As a writer, I always try as hard as possible to get out of the way of the story, so maybe that's the most important thing my readers should know - I'm all about the story, not about the ego. ~ Simon Toyne

But I work harder now because I have so much more exposure. And actually the harder you work as a writer, the better you get at it. It's like anything else. It's a muscle you have to exercise. I write more now than ever. ~ Ron White

And yet, for a writer of fiction, part of the heart remains that of a stranger, for what we are trying to do is to understand those others who are our fictional characters, somehow to gain entrance to their minds and feelings, to respect them for themselves as human individuals, and to portray them as truly as we can. The whole process of fiction is a mysterious one, and a writer, however experienced, remains in some ways a perpetual amateur, or perhaps a perpetual traveller, an explorer of those inner territories, those strange lands of the heart and spirit. ~ Margaret Laurence

Nabokov changed my life," Max said. "I was going to be a writer, and then I read Lolita and I decided to go to law school instead. It looked easier. ~ Leslie Daniels

As far as being territorial about one's own life, that's a mistake for ANY writer. All writers everywhere, in every genre, are drawing from their life and the lives of those around them for "material." Memoirs just make transparent and even amplify that activity. ~ Lidia Yuknavitch

I don't feel that I'm strictly Danish; I don't feel that my sense of humor is strictly Danish or my human sensibility is strictly Danish. ~ Susanne Bier

The first draft is for YOU, the writer; the second and subsequent drafts are for the reader. Trying to do both things at once - figuring out what we want to say, while also fashioning it for another human being to read - is the cause of writer's block. ~ Karen Karbo

What happens if the writer is good is usually not that the work seems derivative or trivial but just the opposite: the work actually acquires depth and resonance from the echoes and chimes it sets up with prior texts, weight from the accumulated use of certain basic patterns and tendencies. Moreover, works are actually more comforting because we can recognize elements of them from our prior reading. I suspect that a wholly original work, one that owed nothing to previous writing, would so lack familiarity as to be quite unnerving to readers. ~ Thomas C. Foster

I've hung out in the writer's room a few times, but the fact is we've got such a good writing staff, I don't want to get my peanut butter fingerprints on anything. ~ Patton Oswalt

When fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. ~ Fred Brooks

I think I had actually served my apprenticeship as a writer of fiction by writing all those songs. I had already been through phases of autobiographical or experimental stuff. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

Crime novels have a clear beginning, middle, and end: a mystery, its investigation, and its resolution. The reader expects events to play out logically and efficiently, and these expectations force the writer to spend a good deal of time working on macrostructure rather than prettifying individual sentences. ~ Jesse Kellerman

I'd love to be a writer one day ~ Danielle Steel

Writing is a conduit. It opens up a passageway into the past. Not just for the writer, but for the reader too. Both readers and writer are linked by the commonality of human experience. ~ Lang Leav

Do not become too pretty with yourself. And by that I mean, do not be afraid to get down in the dirt and tell stories that need to be told, using the appropriate language needed to convey the tale. Use the world around you, the people in it, the situations, the timeless problems and delimmas and yearnings. The further you get from this, with ornate and flowery language, with homogenized and predictable storytelling, the further away you push the audience. For the reason the reader has come to you, the writer, is to see themselves. In Romance, in Westerns, in Science Fiction, in Horror. They want to be able to put themselves in your story, to live it, see it, breathe it. Even if they are unfamiliar with the world you've created or are frightened by it, or it makes them uncomfortable, the reader wants the thrill of a rollercoaster ride. So give the audience its monies worth. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Tell me a good story and I will listen. ~ H.L. Sudler

The writer's no different. When he's rejected, that paper is rejected, in a sense, a sizeable fragment of the writer is rejected as well. It's a piece of himself that's being turned down. ~ Rod Serling

The more genuinely creative [the writer] is, the more he will want his work to develop in accordance with its own nature, and to stand independent of himself ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Write a lot and hit the streets. A writer who doesn't keep up with what's out there ain't gonna be out there. ~ Toni Cade Bambara

He knew who I was, at that time, because I had a reputation as a writer. I knew he was part of the Bush dynasty. But he was nothing, he offered nothing, and he promised nothing. He had no humor. He was insignificant in every way and consequently I didn't pay much attention to him. But when he passed out in my bathtub, then I noticed him. I'd been in another room, talking to the bright people. I had to have him taken away. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

A writer once asked what I'd say if i ever met my biggest hater. I paused, thought deeply and said, probably 'suk a dog dik, motherfuker ~ Ezra Koenig

THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he ~ Ben Jonson

The cool thing about being a songwriter, or a writer, I guess, in general, you can take on a lot of different things, experience a lot of different things, just by writing about them. ~ Amos Lee

All writers are unaffiliated. The novelist, the poet, will understand the institutions they live within, including their religious traditions, as aggregate historically amended fictions. Appointing themselves as witnesses, they are necessarily independent of all institutions, including the institution of the family-which may be why nothing makes family members more nervous than the discovery that one of them is a writer. ~ E.L. Doctorow

Twitter is incredibly useful. It's a great example of how the Internet is changing the way we engage with information and text. Above all else, this change in the nature of engagement is fascinating for me as a writer. ~ Steven Hall

A collection of short stories is generally thought to be a horrendous clinker; an enforced courtesy for the elderly writer who wants to display the trophies of his youth, along with his trout flies. ~ John Cheever

I do not enjoy the promotional side of being a writer, to be blunt about it. Even with the little amount that is expected of me, which is nothing compared to the life of an artist. Writers can live in obscurity and come out of the woodwork with a book, then go back in. Artists don't have that luxury. ~ Rachel Kushner

The true writer must write not the acceptable but the true. ~ David Mamet

He's a writer," she said, as though this explained everything. "He's disappeared before?" "He's emotional," she said, her expression glum. "He's always going off on one, but it's been ten days and I know he's really upset but I need him home now. ~ Robert Galbraith

Always thought being a writer would be one of the most useless things you could be in a zombie apocalypse, but it turns out arts and culture and storytelling is what helps us get through. Along with science, doctors, nurses, delivery people, farm workers and supermarket cashiers. ~ Lauren Beukes

The beginning of a book is always the hardest part for me. I'm a Chapter 3 kind of writer, which means I naturally start at Chapter 3. ~ Kami Garcia

I don't think I'll ever become a real writer and that's quite all right now. I've reached an age at which I'm more at peace with my limitations and failures. ~ Elif Shafak

For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline. ~ Vikram Seth

The term 'role model' is so odious, but the truth is it's a very strong writer indeed who gets by without a model kept somewhere in mind. I think of Keats. Keats slogging away, devouring books, plagiarizing, impersonating, adapting, struggling, growing, writing many poems that made him blush and then a few that made him proud, learning everything he could from whomever he could find, dead or alive, who might have something useful to teach him. ~ Zadie Smith

And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made. ~ Robert Towne

I'm writing. The pages are starting to stack up. My morale is improving the more I feel like a writer. ~ Neil Gaiman

The irony of a writer is he/she craves privacy to pen words that crave the public. ~ Alisha "Priti" Kirpalani

I write fairy tales to live those moments I know will never be mine in reality. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

It is possible that the malice of writers has been overrated (by myself among others). Reading their ruminations on their craft, one sees why this writer could not possibly like that one, would indeed consider him a menace. Literature is a battleground of conflicting faiths, and nobler passions than envy are involved. ~ Wilfrid Sheed

Mann is widely recognized as a master of irony and ambiguity, yet it's remarkable how quickly people foreclose options he carefully leaves open. Lots of readers - including eminent critics - jump to conclusions: that Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy is a central background text, that Aschenbach is an inferior writer, that he's never been attracted by pubescent male beauty before, that he dies of cholera. ~ Philip Kitcher

I wasn't trained as a writer-director. And the projects I write are difficult to finish. ~ Ziad Doueiri

My creative partner is a writer, and he's got an executive producing credit on this film. We've made three films together and I would never underestimate the impact of a writer. ~ Taylor Hackford

The late American golfing coach and writer, Harvey Penick, held that any who played golf was his friend – in the politer sense of Arcades ambo, I gather. … I myself hold with Honest Izaak that there is – and that I am a member of – a communion of, if not saints, at least anglers and very honest men, some now with God and others of us yet upon the quiet waters. … The man is a mere brute, and no true angler, whose sport is measured only in fish caught and boasted of. For what purpose do we impose on ourselves limits and conventions if not to make sport of a mere mechanical harvest of protein? The true angler can welcome even a low river and a dry year, and learn of it, and be the better for it, in mind and in spirit. So, No: the hatch is not all that it might be, for if it is warm enough and early with it, it is also in a time of drought; and, No: I don't get to the river as often as I should wish. But these things do not make this a poor year: they are an unlooked-for opportunity to delve yet deeper into the secrets of the river, and grow wise. … Rejoice, then, in all seasons, ye fishers. The world the river is; both you and I, And all mankind, are either fish or fry. We must view it with judicious looks, and get wisdom whilst we may. And to all honest anglers, then, I wish, as our master Izaak wished us long ago, 'a rainy evening to read this following Discourse; and that if he be an honest Angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing. ~ G.M.W. Wemyss

I'm a writer, so I interview people all the time, and I think of it as being a very creative process. Giving interviews is actually one of the most creative parts of the film promotion process. ~ Aaron Rose

It's funny, in a way the actor is a writer. It's not like the two things are so separate as to be like apples and oranges. The writer and the actor are one. ~ Sam Shepard

The bond between book reader and book writer has always been a tightly symbiotic one, a means of intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization. The words of the writer act as a catalyst in the mind of the reader, inspiriting new insights, associations, and perceptions, sometimes even epiphanies. And the very existence of the attentive, critical reader provides the spur for the writer's work. It gives the author confidence to explore new forms of expression, to blaze difficult and demanding paths of thought, to venture into uncharted and sometimes hazardous territory. "All great men have written proudly, nor cared to explain," said Emerson. "They knew that the intelligent reader would come at last, and would thank them. ~ Nicholas Carr

Writing should be a little bit grainy, it should be a little bit raw. It should be every single thing flowing inside of us, and most of it isn't pretty. If there is nothing at stake in what I'm reading, if there is nothing at stake for the writer, I am just not interested. You gotta be there. You have to basically bleed for it. If not, why are you trying to put this in the world. ~ Gregory Sherl