Authorship Quotes - Page 4

• A writer who attempts to live on the manufacture of his imagination is continually coquetting with starvation.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Imagination, Starvation

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1870). “Essays and Reviews”, p.38

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• All authors to their own defects are blind.

  John Dryden

  Blind, Defects

  John Dryden (1808). “The works of John Dryden: now first collected in eighteen volumes. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author”, p.211

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• There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Done, Chance

  Samuel Johnson (1854). “Lives of the most eminent English poets, with critical observations on their works. With notes by P. Cunningham”, p.233

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• Translation is a form of passive aggression. In doing it, a writer chooses to forgo original authorship so as to play havoc with a foreign original in a process of imitation, zigzagging between the foreign and receiving languages but in the last analysis cancelling the first in favor of the second.

  Lawrence Venuti

  Play, Favors, Lasts

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• Nature I believe in. True art aims to, represent men and women, not as my little self would have them, but as they appear. My heroes and heroines I want not extreme types, all good or all bad; but human, mortal--partly good, partly bad. Realism I need. Pure mental abstractions have no significance for me.

  Ouida

  Art, Hero, Believe

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• All these teachers and [screenwriting] books mean you see movies that have been worked over by more committees wielding more rules, that all originality and authorship is lost. That's why you're seeing superstars like Brad Pitt in THE FIGHT CLUB and Tom Cruise in MAGNOLIA. They're desperately searching for people writing and directing off-formula movies.

  Paul Schrader

  Teacher, Book, Writing

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• Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Writing, Ego, Fantastic

  John Kenneth Galbraith (1958). “The Affluent Society”, Boston : Houghton Mifflin

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• Our favorites are few; since only what rises from the heart reaches it, being caught and carried on the tongues of men wheresoever love and letters journey.

  Amos Bronson Alcott

  Book, Heart, Journey

  Amos Bronson Alcott (1868). “Tablets”

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• If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with

  Ayn Rand

  Giving, Credit, Objectivism

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• It is commonly the personal character of a writer which gives him his public significance. It is not imparted by his genius. Napoleon said of Corneille, "Were he living I would make him a king;" but he did not read him. He read Racine, yet he said nothing of the kind of Racine.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Kings, Character, Giving

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• Authors may be divided into falling stars, planets, and fixed stars: the first have a momentary effect; the second have a much longer duration; but the third are unchangeable, possess their own light, and work for all time.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Stars, Fall, Light

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• Ye who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities.
  [Lat., Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, aequam Viribus.]

  Horace

  Writing, Ability, Subjects

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• Those authors who appear sometimes to forget they are writers, and remember they are men, will be our favorites.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Men, Remember, Sometimes

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• The idea that it is necessary to go to a university in order to become a successful writer . . . is one of those fantasies that surround authorship.

  Vera Brittain

  Successful, Order, Ideas

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• Of all unfortunate men one of the unhappiest is a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Men, Criticism, Lively

  Isaac Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield) (1861). “Curiosities of literature”, p.81

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• The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Truth, Sentiments, Imports

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1875). “Letters and Social Aims”, p.155

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• Is it not singular how some men continue to obtain the reputation of popular authorship without adding a word to the literature of their country worthy of note?? To puff and to get one's self puffed have become different branches of a new profession.

  Anthony Trollope

  Country, Men, Self

  'The Way We Live Now' (1875) ch. 1

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• Evolution advances, not by a priori design, but by the selection of what works best out of whatever choices offer. We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.

  George Wald

  Science, Editing, Choices

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• Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.

  Jonathan Swift

  Book, Omission, Relation

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• That an author's work is the mirror of his mind is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan himself were to write a book it would be in praise of virtue, because the good would purchase it for use, and the bad for ostentation.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Book, Writing, Mirrors

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.141

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• For all the practical purposes of life, truth might as well be in a prison as in the folio of a schoolman; and those who release her from her cobwebbed shelf and teach her to live with men have the merit of liberating, if not of discovering, her.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Purpose, Might

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.199

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• There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to understand the common antithesis of a good writer and a bad man.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Character, Men, Judging

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1851). “Literature and life, lects”, p.5

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• Most people believe that the Creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of their books. Unfortunately, there are many books that pretend to divine authorship, and each makes incompatible claims about how we all must live.

  Sam Harris

  Believe, Book, People

  "Science Must Destroy Religion" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 2, 2006.

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• Living authors, therefore, are usually, bad companions. If they have not gained character, they seek to do so by methods often ridiculous, always disgusting; and if they have established a character, they are silent for fear of losing by their tongue what they have acquired by their pen--for many authors converse much more foolishly than Goldsmith, who have never written half so well.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Character, Half, Tongue

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.158

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• The familiar writer is apt to be his own satirist. Out of his own mouth is he judged.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Mouths, Familiar, Satirist

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1870). “Essays and Reviews”, p.148

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