New Writers Quotes

Lately, because computer technology has made self-publishing an easier and less expensive venture, I'm getting a lot of review copies of amateur books by writers who would be better advised to hone their craft before committing it to print. The best thing you can do as a beginning writer is to write, write, write - and read, read, read. Concentrating on publication prematurely is a mistake. You don't pick up a violin and expect to play Carnegie Hall within the year - yet somehow people forget that writing also requires technical skills that need to be learned, practiced, honed. If I had a dollar for every person I've met who thought, with no prior experience, they could sit down and write a novel and instantly win awards and make their living as a writer, I'd be a rich woman today. It's unrealistic, and it's also mildly insulting to professional writers who have worked hard to perfect their craft. Of course, then you hear stories about people like J.K. Rowling, who did sit down with no prior experience and write a worldwide best-seller...but such people are as rare as hen's teeth. Every day I work with talented, accomplished writers who have many novels in print and awards to their name and who are 'still' struggling to make a living. The thing I often find myself wanting to say to new writers is: Write because you love writing, learn your craft, be patient, and be realistic. Anais Nin said about writing, "It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it bre ~ Terri Windling

Writers know - especially new writers - [that] a lot of it [creative process] is the prewriting stage, the talking, brainstorming, the narrative arc and the character sketches. ~ Jenna Bush

When you're young, you keep reading new writers and you keep changing your mind about how you ought to sound. ~ Paul Auster

The only advice [for new writers and poets] I can offer is to be yourself: not the self someone else wants you to be, but the self you are. Enjoy yourself and your life. But most of all travel and eat. That's how we learn. ~ Nikki Giovanni

English teachers, workshops, and myths try to make writers slow down. We are the ONLY ART on the planet that tells young artists to not practice and do less to get better. Head-shaking in its stupidity. And new writers buy into that. ~ Dean Wesley Smith

Too many new writers dress up old cliches. ~ Christopher Fowler

People are put down in television now, not because they're not qualitative, not because they're not talented - but because there's no room for them, and worse than that, there's nowhere they can find exposure. Their own good talent may die of mourning, just for want of having somebody read what they've written. I don't presume to say how we can best provide platforms for new writers to get read. I don't know. But therein lies the major problem. ~ Rod Serling

Our constant desire to genre-label cripples new writers. Let them experiment, explore and surprise. ~ Carla H. Krueger

Space opera, as every reader doubtless knows, is a pejorative term often applied to a story that has an element of adventure. Over the decades, brilliant and talented new writers appear, receiving great acclaim, and each and every one of them can be expected to write at least one article stating flatly that the day of space opera is over and done, thank goodness, and that henceforth these crude tales of interplanetary nonsense will be replaced by whatever type of story that writer happens to favor - closet dramas, psychological dramas, sex dramas, etc., but by God important dramas, containing nothing but Big Thinks. Ten years late, the writer in question may or may not still be around, but the space opera can be found right where it always was, sturdily driving its dark trade in heroes. ~ Leigh Brackett

I think most new writers are better off going with traditional publishers who will actually, at a minimum, edit your work, package it well, and market it for you. ~ Ellen Datlow

People have told me, "Go write your book," and I said, "OK. ~ Millicent Ashby

Stephen King started to read comics first, I started to watch films and little reading books...Now everything has changed Stephen King reads books and watch films, I read comics, watch films, read books listen to audiobooks...
This are two different stories, you were challanged to open them, good job you open them now but can you try to start a new life??
To start by opening a new book??
Meeting with new characters??
With new writers??
With one new book which has a story which you haven't heard??
Probably, you aren't still ready! ~ Deyth Banger

My problem with new writers is that it takes me five or six years to memorise the right names. ~ Larry Niven

I wouldn't encourage new writers to start off publishing through electronic media ... it still isn't wide enough for the readership they would need to get a good start. ~ Anne McCaffrey

A lot of new writers assume you have to know the where the story is going and that it flows out as molten gold. But really, sometimes you think you are going to one place, but then you decide that is dumb idea. Then you go somewhere else and it is a worse idea. But then you switch again and you might have a beautiful accident. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

New writers seem to pop up from everywhere. And quite a few of them are really good and original. ~ Toni Jerrman

We've got a bunch of new writers now who tell me they grew up watching The Simpsons. It's bizarre, and they're writing some very funny stuff. ~ Matt Groening

From my years of teaching creative writing, I know that new writers take the setting for granted, as simply a place to set the action, but setting is a vital element in fiction writing and deserves serious treatment. ~ Garry Disher

Every famous writer was once an unknown writer. If publishers never published new writers, they wouldn't be publishing anyone at all after a while. ~ Victoria Strauss

I'm inspired by artists and musicians. There are so many wonderful and talented people in the world. I love discovering new music, new writers, or new art. ~ Alicia Keys

Odo in fact owed his first acquaintance with the French writers to Alfieri, who, in the intervals of his wandering over Europe, now and then reappeared in Turin laden with the latest novelties in Transalpine literature and haberdashery. What his eccentric friend failed to provide, Odo had little difficulty in obtaining for himself; for though most of the new writers were on the Index, and the Sardinian censorship was notoriously severe, there was never yet a barrier that could keep out books, and Cantapresto was a skilled purveyor of contraband dainties. Odo had thus acquainted himself with the lighter literature of England and France; and though he had read but few philosophical treatises, was yet dimly aware of the new standpoint from which, north of the Alps, men were beginning to test the accepted forms of thought. The ~ Edith Wharton

Australian SF book publishing has undergone a boom recently, and sometimes it's easier for new writers to sell a book to a local publisher first, which then makes a US edition more likely. ~ Greg Egan

Most new writers think it's easy to write for children, but it's not. You have to get in a beginning, middle and end, tell a great story, write well, not be condescending-all in a few pages. ~ Andrea Brown

One of the things that put me off writing for a while was that piece of advice everybody gives new writers: 'Write what you know.' Nobody would ever want to read about my boring life! But I do know a lot of things about different societies' cultures and mythologies. The way people were and are. ~ Carol Berg

Whenever any of these new writers come up who are brilliant, I always realize that you have more talent and more skill than any of them;---but circumstances have prevented you from realizing upon the fact for a long time. [About F. Scott Fitzgerald] ~ Maxwell Perkins

I have advice for new writers, first of all, at any time in the history of publishing in my experience, there will be endless number people telling you that you can't do what you are trying to do. You won't succeed, there's something else you should be doing. ~ Dean Koontz

The essay community should have hundreds of anthologies from hundreds of different perspectives that are constantly introducing us to new writers, new work, and new visions for our genre. The whole spirit of these anthologies is that there should never be a last word in how essays are interpreted or what they can be. ~ John D'Agata

Writing is not the lottery. New writers have to be realistic about what it takes to get published. But there is one similarity to the lottery: You have to play to win. ~ Lori Perkins

In my view, the ebook world for both established and new authors is a terrific new and exciting format. It is a format that will bring forth many new writers to publishing. ~ Robert Gottlieb

A writer feels happy when the words connect with the reader's heart. ~ Avijeet Das

As we acquire new aches and new pains, our health care is, of necessity, being supplied by internists, cardiologists, dermatologists, podiatrists, urologists, periodontists, gynecologists and psychiatrists, from all of whom we want a second opinion. We want a second opinion that says, don't worry, you are going to live forever. ~ Judith Viorst

Lincoln again got his name prominently mentioned in the New York Tribune, though this time it was for allegedly pumping up his expense account. ~ Harold Holzer

We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it. We have had enough of immorality and the mockery of ethics, goodness, faith and honesty. It is time to acknowledge that light-hearted superficiality has done us no good. When the foundations of social life are corroded, what ensues are battles over conflicting interests, new forms of violence and brutality, and obstacles to the growth of a genuine culture of care for the environment. ~ Pope Francis

It by no means follows, that because two men utter the same words, they have precisely the same idea which they mean to express: language is inadequate to the variety of ideas which are conceived by different minds, and which, could they be expressed, would produce a new variety of characteristic differences between man and man. ~ Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke

I think that, in comparison, New Yorkers and Northerners are so guarded. ~ Genevieve Gorder

Humanity must be cut to the ground and allowed to flourish once again ~ Jonathan Dunne

The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more 'literary' you are ... The good writers touch life often. ~ Ray Bradbury

Because our daughters have school and it's just such a hassle going down to New York all the time, we can really only go on the weekends, we kind of ... Steve came up here and worked out stuff for the second half of the record. ~ Kim Gordon

Don't ever let anyone tell you that history doesn't repeat. For 70 years, liberals have been spinning the yarn that FDR's New Deal, despite all the evidence that it exacerbated and prolonged the Great Depression, quickened our economic recovery. Indeed, I remember scratching my head when one of my college history professors in the 1970s tried to convince us of that theory and its corollary - an even better howler - that FDR was actually a conservative, because if he hadn't implemented his socialist programs, the republic would have died right there. ~ David Limbaugh

Writers live with fear. Some writers cannot deal with the fear, and so they quit or refuse to publish. In order to write, you must either ignore the fear or trick it into leaving you alone. The fear is very sly, though and hard to trick. The fear in writing comes from exposing your thoughts, your emotions, your experiences, your ideas, your talent, your intelligence and ultimately your self to public scrutiny and possible scorn. The fear is by no means groundless. You have opened yourself up to the possibility of public humiliations...I sometimes wonder if perhaps the greatest novel ever written isn't gathering dust in some filing cabinet somewhere, simply because its author could not overcome the fear of having it published. ~ Patrick F. McManus

Writers by nature are subversive, observant, and discerning, and their voice contains that. ~ Amy Tan

I firmly believe that relationships don't end because new people come along to break them up; people come along to break them up because something else in the relationship is already off. ~ Sophie Lucido Johnson

As a matter of face, Zen is at present most fashionable in America among those who are least concerned with moral discipline. Zen has, indeed, become for us a symbol of moral revolt. It is true, the Zen-man's contempt for conventional and formalistic social custom is a healthy phenomenon, but it is healthy only because it presupposes a spiritual liberty based on freedom from passion, egotism and self-delusion. A pseudo-Zen attitude which seeks to justify a complete moral collapse with a few rationalizations based on the Zen Masters is only another form of bourgeois self-deception. It is not an expression of healthy revolt, but only another aspect of the same lifeless and inert conventionalism against which it appears to be protesting. ~ Thomas Merton

Pain exists only in the mind. Whether an event is real or not doesn't matter, only that the mind believes it is. Suffering can be suspended by achieving new beliefs and perspectives. We see what we want to see, and feel what we want to feel. Never doubt that the life you lead is the life you want. ~ Shaman Elizabeth Herrera

The franchise and the virus work on the same principle: what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder ― its DNA ― xerox it, and embed it in the fertile lining of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a lef- turn lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines.

In olden times, you'd wander down to Mom's Café for a bite to eat and a cup of joe, and you would feel right at home. It worked just fine if you never left your hometown. But if you went to the next town over, everyone would look up and stare at you when you came in the door, and the Blue Plate Special would be something you didn't recognize. If you did enough traveling, you'd never feel at home anywhere.

But when a businessman from New Jersey goes to Dubuque, he knows he can walk into a McDonald's and no one will stare at him. He can order without having to look at the menu, and the food will always taste the same. McDonald's is Home, condensed into a three-ringed binder and xeroxed. "No surprises" is the motto of the franchise ghetto, its Good Housekeeping seal, subliminally blazoned on every sign and logo that make up the curves and grids of light that outline the Basin.

The people of America, who live in the world's most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. ~ Neal Stephenson

I like my whiskey neat and strong just as I like my women. Women who have matured in their minds and bodies; women who have faced the storms of life!

Because my life has always been about the thrill with the raging storms! ~ Avijeet Das

I've discovered writers by reading books left in airplane seats and weird hotels. ~ Lee Child

Writers show us the glades we'd missed, the trickling voices of streams, the eyes of a barn owl watching us. A writer like my father revealed a shape and movement amid it all, layers, meaning, perspective, joy, because he paid such careful attention, and paying attention is about the biggest redemption there is. ~ Anne Lamott

But the frightening aspect is that it's part of a larger effort from the Pentagon to tear down the wall between public affairs and propaganda, and essentially say there is no difference between information operations, public affairs and psychological operations. It's all one and the same. They have a new name for that too, it's called Information Engagement. ~ Michael Hastings

Nowadays they have 12 directors and 15 producers and 30 writers. And all the writers want their lines said a certain way-which isn't necessarily funny. I mean the lines aren't necessarily so funny to begin with. ~ Tim Conway

Well, she thought, I'm certainly bright. She had wanted to meet a new boy and when she finally did meet one she didn't even find out his name ~ Beverly Cleary

When I teach, I try to assign writers from whom I can learn. ~ Tom Barbash

As the new day dawns, and my inkwell runs dry, I hereby make a vow. Not a vow to the man I once hoped to marry, but a promise to myself. From this morning forward, I will never shed another tear for him. There is no need. Because everything Lord Dashwood rejected when he so callously walked away - ­is mine to claim. Mine to use. My wit, my strength, and most of all - ­my heart. I will not put any of these on the shelf. ~ Tessa Dare

Life can give everything to whoever tries to understand and is willing to receive new knowledge. ~ Pramoedya Ananta Toer

in A Moral Vision of the New Testament. Hays says, "This means that for the foreseeable future we must find ways to live within the church in a situation of serious moral disagreement while still respecting one another as brother and sisters in Christ. If the church is going to start practicing the discipline of exclusion from the community, there are other issues far more important than homosexuality where we should begin to draw a line in the dirt: violence and materialism, for example." [117] I am convinced that how the biblical prohibitions apply to monogamous gay relationships is indeed a disputable matter and that the teaching of Romans 14-15 should guide our response. ~ Ken Wilson

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm not interested in seeing a film just made by a woman - not unless she is looking for new images. ~ Agnes Varda

Had taught him to sharpen his senses - to trust the instincts that had been guiding him south. His homing radar was tingling like crazy now. The end of his journey was close - almost right under his feet. But how could that be? There was nothing on the hilltop. The wind changed. Percy caught the sour scent of reptile. A hundred yards down the slope, something rustled through the woods - snapping branches, crunching leaves, hissing. Gorgons. For the millionth time, Percy wished their noses weren't so good. They had always said they could smell him because he was a demigod - the half-blood son of some old Roman god. Percy had tried rolling in mud, splashing through creeks, even keeping air-freshener sticks in his pockets so he'd have that new car smell; but apparently demigod stink was hard to mask. He scrambled to the west ~ Rick Riordan

Where do [writers] get [their] ideas? And the answer is that no one knows where the come from and nobody should know. They evolve in thin air, they float down from some mysterious heaven, and we reach and grab one, to grasp in our imagination, and to make it our own. One writer might overhear a conversation in a cafe and a whole novel will be built from that moment. Another might see an article in a newspaper and a plot will suggest itself immediately. Another might hear about an unpleasant incident that happened to a friend of a friend in a supermarket . . . . ~ John Boyne

I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes. So for me, writing from a male point of view would be a great challenge, that I would look forward to taking on. ~ Marisha Pessl

In order to grow we must be open to new ideas ... new ways of doing things ... new ways of thinking. ~ George Raveling

I think people are more likely to think it's better to find something new. That mentality has affected all of our thinking. ~ Marilyn Yalom

You know I'm always ready to indulge your fantasies. ~ Faith Sullivan