Famous Writers Quotes - Page 2

• I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Funny, Travel

  Oscar Wilde (2005). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.50, Prestwick House Inc

  67 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Teaching

  34 Copy quote

• Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

  Anne Lamott

  Writing, Effort, Needs

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.25, Anchor

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

  Anton Chekhov

  Lying, Writing, Stories

  45 Copy quote

• As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Doubt, Adjectives

  Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) ch. 11

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Writers are always selling somebody out.

  Joan Didion

  Writing, Journalism, Selling

  Slouching towards Bethlehem (1968) p. xvi

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Business, Writing, Thinking

  "With Hemingway". Book by Arnold Samuelson, 1984.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

  William Butler Yeats

  Inspirational, Wise, Teamwork

  95 Copy quote

• Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Life, Being Alone, Writing

  43 Copy quote

• Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Writing, Hands, Ashamed

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.233, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• That famous writer’s block is a myth as far as I’m concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing. They don’t want to do it. They have become writers out of reasons of ambition. It must be a great strain to them to make marks on a page when they really have nothing much to say, and don’t enjoy doing it. I’m not so sure what I have to say but I certainly enjoy making sentences.

  Gore Vidal

  Block, Writing, Ambition

  FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Aug 06, 2012

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I know of only one country, at least to my knowledge, which has a dissident culture where leading figures, I mean, the most famous writers, journalists, academics and so on, are not only critical of state policy, but are constantly carrying out civil disobedience and risking imprisonment and often being imprisoned, standing up for people's rights. That's Turkey.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Mean, Rights

  Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Finally and most important of all, authenticity means that you must do what you do the way you do it and allow everyone else the same courtesy. There was a time I wanted to be like every famous writer that ever lived. I tried to copy styles, reframe information, use similar artwork. I almost drove myself crazy! Now I just do what I do. I have mentors. There are people whose work I admire, but I write the way I write. I eat the way I eat. I dress the way I dress. I can't believe that God made us each so unique only to have us do everything the same way.

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Crazy, Believe, Writing

  Iyanla Vanzant (2012). “One Day My Soul Just Opened Up: 40 Days And 40 Nights Towards Spiritual Strength And Personal Growth”, p.243, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Being a famous writer is a little like being a tall dwarf. You're on the edge of normality.

  John Updike

  Dwarves, Littles, Fame

  5 Copy quote

• My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Jack London, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Pearl Buck, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to name a few.

  Debbie Macomber

  Children, Wall, Names

  13 Copy quote

• I would want to travel the world and write about it. To be a famous writer.

  Shantel VanSanten

  Writing, World, Want

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The best young writers are convinced they need blurbs from famous writers before an editor will even read the first page of a manuscript. If this is true, then the editorial system that prevails today stinks. And let's start reforming it.

  Diane Wakoski

  Editors, Needs, Pages

  Diane Wakoski (1980). “Toward a new poetry”, Univ of Michigan Pr

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I learned that famous writers are people with foibles like anyone else and this helped me realize reaching their level of notoriety wasn't impossible.

  Kirby Wright

  People, Levels, Impossible

  "Hawaii, Mortuaries, And Saving Kurt Vonnegut: An Interview With Kirby Wright". Interview with George Wallace, www.greatweatherformedia.com. September 5, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I thought if only I had a keen, shapely bone structure to my face or could discuss politics shrewdly or was a famous writer Constantin might find me interesting enough to sleep with. And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him.

  Sylvia Plath

  Sleep, Boys, Interesting

  Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.44, Hamilton Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you want help in starting to write memoirs, you don't want to fall into the clutches of a famous writer who has been hired to teach at a writing workshop solely because of his name's ability to attract students, rather than because of any teaching skill. You should not have to grapple with someone who secretly thinks you should be writing about his life rather than your own.

  Judith Barrington

  Fall, Teaching, Writing

  Judith Barrington (2002). “Writing the Memoir”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The routines of almost all famous writers, from Charles Darwin to John Grisham, similarly emphasise specific starting times, or number of hours worked, or words written. Such rituals provide a structure to work in, whether or not the feeling of motivation or inspiration happens to be present. They let people work alongside negative or positive emotions, instead of getting distracted by the effort of cultivating only positive ones. ‘Inspiration is for amateurs,’ the artist Chuck Close once memorably observed. ‘The rest of us just show up and get to work.

  Oliver Burkeman

  Motivation, Inspiration, Artist

  8 Copy quote

• For anyone to understand a regime like the GDR, the stories of ordinary people must be told. Not just the activists or the famous writers. You have to look at how normal people manage with such things in their pasts.

  Anna Funder

  Past, People, Ordinary

  4 Copy quote

• I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen.

  J. K. Rowling

  Would Be, Fame, Austen

  "'Harry is a lot, lot, lot angrier in this book'". Interview with Jeremy Paxman, www.telegraph.co.uk. June 20, 2003.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you could have a famous writer, dead or alive, write an obituary for you and really puff you up to have been something you weren’t, perhaps, or otherwise take liberties with your memory, what writer would you choose?

  Padgett Powell

  Memories, Writing, Liberty

  Padgett Powell (2010). “The Interrogative Mood”, p.22, Profile Books

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous. You know, my fantasy of being a famous writer, and again there's a slight disconnect with reality which happens a lot with me. I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen.

  J. K. Rowling

  Reality, Interesting, Would Be

  8 Copy quote