American Writer Quotes

• I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

  Jack London

  Sleep, Atoms, Writing Words

  Quoted in Bulletin (San Francisco), 2 Dec. 1916.

  36 Copy quote

  Show source

• The task of an American writer is not to describe the misgivings of a woman taken in adultery as she looks out of a window at the rain but to describe four hundred people under the lights reaching for a foul ball. This is ceremony.

  John Cheever

  Rain, Taken, Writing

  "The Journals of John Cheever" by Robert Gottlieb, 1963.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are dozens of great American writers who write about the family.

  William Nicholson

  Writing, Dozen, Great American

  1 Copy quote

• The majority of American writers today have chosen passive non-resistance to things as they are, producing sloughs of poetry about their personal angst and anomie, cascades of short stories and rivers of novels obsessed with the nuances of domestic relationships - suburban hanky-panky - chic boutique shopping mall literary soap opera. When they do speak out on matters of controversy they attack not the evils of our time but fellow writers who may insist on complaining.

  Edward Abbey

  Speaks Out, Shopping, Rivers

  Edward Abbey (1988). “One Life at a Time, Please”, p.172, Macmillan

  1 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a well-balanced show. It's 50/50 on men/women, and also African-American/white writers, it's the same thing. I have four African-American writers, and four non-African-American writers.

  Wanda Sykes

  Men, White, African American

  Source: www.avclub.com

  1 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's the tradition of American writers getting away in order to see the country - to get a better view.

  Laurie Anderson

  Country, Views, Order

  Interview with A.M. Homes, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 2, 2015.

  1 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Fellowship, Foundation, Enough

  Source: www.believermag.com

  1 Copy quote

  Show source

• You know what needs to be done when you're a writer. You know what the job is, particularly if you're an African American writer, or if you deal with people, or if your subjects are poor people or people who need voice. So you don't really need to know whether or not you are doing the right thing. What you have to be wary of if you're doing the right thing to the right level that will surpass your own life. I'm hoping that my work will surpass my own life.

  James McBride

  Jobs, Voice, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

  1 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm one of the few Black writers, or African American writers, who managed to work my way through the system so that it has allowed me to speak in a kind of free way. But most African American writers don't have that. They don't have that opportunity, they don't have that.

  James McBride

  Opportunity, African American, Black

  Source: www.pbs.org

  1 Copy quote

  Show source

• Class is the most difficult subject for American writers to deal with as it is the most difficult for the English to avoid.

  Gore Vidal

  Class, Difficult, Deals

  Gore Vidal (1991). “A view from the diners club: essays 1987-1991”

  2 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober.

  James Thurber

  Writing, Years, Sober

  Quoted in NeilT Jones (ed) A Book of Days for the Literary Year (1984).

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Country, War, Fighting

  1 Copy quote

• The most underrated of all contemporary American writers of fiction.

  William March

  Fiction, Underrated, Contemporary

  William March, William T. Going, Richard Brough (2011). “99 Fables”, p.20, University of Alabama Press

  1 Copy quote

  Show source

• American writers, at least those of us who are fortunate enough to support ourselves in the field, are by and large a lucky lot.

  Bryan Burrough

  Support, Lucky, Fields

  1 Copy quote

• I do feel fortunate to have some knowledge of the great Latin American writers, including some that are probably not that well known in English. Im thinking of Jose Maria Arguedas, whom I read when I was living in Lima, and who really impacted the way I viewed my country.

  Daniel Alarcon

  Country, Latin, Thinking

  1 Copy quote

• As a Vietnamese refugee who became an American writer, I can tell you that you matter, that your sadness matters, the story of how you survived and triumphed matters. For every story that belongs to you, in time, belongs to America.

  Andrew Lam

  Sadness, America, Stories

  Andrew Lam (2010). “East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres”, p.133, Heyday

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Salter is a writer who particularly rewards those for whom reading is an intense pleasure. He is among the very few North American writers all of whose work I want to read, whose as-yet-unpublished books I wait for impatiently.

  Susan Sontag

  Reading, Book, Waiting

  1 Copy quote

• I want people to read good work. If I see someone reading a book by Lorrie Moore or Jennifer Egan, I'm psyched. If I see them reading X Latin American Writer Who Sucks, I'm not psyched. But in terms of news, I do think that's important.

  Daniel Alarcon

  Latin, Book, Reading

  1 Copy quote

• Every time I make an American film I just trust the American director and American writer. Myself, I would never make this kind of film. For me, those kinds of films are ridiculous. They don't make sense.

  Jackie Chan

  Directors, Ridiculous, Kind

  38 Copy quote

• Oh, I love labels, as long as they are numerous. I'm an American writer. I'm a Nigerian writer. I'm a Nigerian American writer. I'm an African writer. I'm a Yoruba writer. I'm an African American writer. I'm a writer who's been strongly influenced by European precedents. I'm a writer who feels very close to literary practice in India - which I go to quite often - and to writers over there.

  Teju Cole

  Practice, Long, African American

  "Teju Cole on the 'Empathy Gap' and Tweeting Drone Strikes". Interview with Sarah Zhang, www.motherjones.com. March 6, 2013.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm Mexican-American, but for a long time I was pushed out of any references to Mexican-American writers. It was easier to come out as a gay man than it was to come out as a Mexican-American.

  John Rechy

  Gay, Men, Long

  "'I'm a Writer Who Hustled, Not a Hustler Who Wrote': An Interview With John Rechy". Interview with June Thomas, www.slate.com. December 9, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our everyday language has become encumbered, Germanic, artificial, bureaucratic, inorganic. It may not be exaggerated to say that by now American writers face but two alternatives: write English, or write gobbledygook.

  John Lukacs

  Writing, Two, Everyday

  6 Copy quote

• I'm an African-American writer, I'm a lazy writer, I'm a writer who likes to watch The Wire, I'm a writer who likes to eat a lot of steak.

  Colson Whitehead

  Lazy, Wire

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  1 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stephen [King], who wrote the script himself, was on the set [of The Stand], and I was just so fortunate to get to know him. What a wonderful man. He may go down in history as the greatest American writer, pound for pound.

  Rob Lowe

  Kings, Men, May

  Source: www.avclub.com

  1 Copy quote

  Show source

• Things have changed in Latin America now. We mostly have democratic governments in Latin America, so the position of the writer has changed. It is not as Neruda used to say, that a Latin American writer walks around with the body of his people on his back. Now, we have citizens, we have public means of expression, political parties, congress, unions. So, the writer's position has changed, we now consider ourselves to be citizens - not spokespeople for everybody - but citizens that participate in the political and social process of the country.

  Carlos Fuentes

  Country, Latin, Party

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  1 Copy quote

  Show source