Great Writers Quotes - Page 6

• Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech.

  Thornton Wilder

  Giving, Awkward, Style

  Interview in "Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, First Series", edited by Malcolm Cowley, 1958.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• A great writer has all 4 - but you can still be a good writer with only 1 and 2.

  Susan Sontag

  Writing, Stills, Good Writers

  Susan Sontag (2008). “Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963”, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The bible is very resonant. It has everything, creation, betrayal, lust, poetry, prophecy, sacrifice. All great things are in the bible and all great writers have drawn from it and more than people realise, whether Shakespeare, Herman Melville or Bob Dylan. Of course there are stories that are still relevant and inspiring; lessons that need to be taught over and over again. And they give people hope.

  Patti Smith

  Betrayal, Sacrifice, People

  Source: www.independent.co.uk

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are many people writing songs. That is absolutely wonderful. Who knows, there may be some kid in diapers and he or she might succeed in capturing in a few dozen words what great writers have spent years trying to say. Just the right word in the right place with the right melody behind it and the right rhythm. It might get around the world inch by inch, and people realize that this world is in danger, that we're in danger. That's the way "This Land Is Your Land" got to be so well known.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Kids, Writing

  Source: www.wholeearth.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was intoxicated by the romantic poetry of our great writers. I arranged the world according to my private use, looking at it through the poems I had devoured.

  Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont

  Use, World, Romantic Poetry

  6 Copy quote

• Great writers create; writers of smaller gifts copy

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Copies

  4 Copy quote

• Live an interesting life. Meet people. Read a lot and widely, learn from the great writers

  Michael Morpurgo

  People, Interesting, Interesting Life

  "Michael Morpurgo's top writing tips" by Michael Morpurgo, www.theguardian.com. December 8, 2012.

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've known Shawn for several years. And he's just an amazing talent. He's a great writer, a marvelous, marvelous guitar player, and plays really good fiddle.

  Guy Clark

  Player, Guitar, Years

  8 Copy quote

• English literature is a glorious inheritance which is open to all - there are no barriers, no coupons, and no restrictions. In the English language and in its great writers there are great riches and treasures, of which, of course, the Bible and Shakespeare stand along on the highest platform.

  Winston Churchill

  Inheritance, Literature, Treasure

  5 Copy quote

• The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other well.

  Elias Canetti

  Inspirational, Aphorism, Wells

  The Human Province "1943" (1978) (translation by Joachim Neugroschel)

  80 Copy quote

  Show source

• A creative writing program is only as good as its teachers, and I was fortunate in having two great writers as mentors.

  Jay McInerney

  Teacher, Writing, Two

  "Novelist Jay McInerney on Getting Your Novel Underway". Interview with Anne Bowling, www.writersdigest.com. March 11, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm pleased to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I realize I am a writer people buy to take on vacation.

  Maeve Binchy

  Vacation, People, Insane

  4 Copy quote

• Edgar Allan Poe is considered the great writer of horror stories, perhaps the greatest - I will say the greatest

  William Friedkin

  Horror Stories, Allan Poe, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• I'm not on the run from anything and I'm not at all clear about what I'm running towards. But as some great writer put it, I want to be certain that when I arrive at death, I'm totally exhausted.

  Fiona Shaw

  Running, Want, Exhausted

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• My dad was an editor and a writer, and that's really where I would have liked to have gone. But the genetic link was not intact there, so I wound up going into business. But I love to write, still. I'm not a great writer, but I enjoy it.

  Anne M. Mulcahy

  Dad, Writing, Editors

  4 Copy quote

• It is the little writer rather than the great writer who seems never to quote, and the reason is that he is never really doing anything else.

  Havelock Ellis

  Writing, Littles, Reason

  havelock ellis (1923). “the dance of life”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The need to express oneself in writing springs from a mal-adjustment to life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action. Those to whom action comes as easily as breathing rarely feel the need to break loose from the real, to rise above, and describe it... I do not mean that it is enough to be maladjusted to become a great writer, but writing is, for some, a method of resolving a conflict, provided they have the necessary talent.

  Andre Maurois

  Spring, Real, Writing

  10 Copy quote

• The great writer finds style as the mystic finds God, in his own soul.

  Havelock Ellis

  Soul, Style, Mystic

  havelock ellis (1923). “the dance of life”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's no use imagining that bringing great writers together inevitably precipitates great conversation.

  Edward St Aubyn

  Together, Use, Conversation

  4 Copy quote

• If I'd learned nothing else, it was this: If you want to be a great writer, be a man. If you can't be a man, write like one.

  Julianna Baggott

  Writing, Men, Want

  4 Copy quote

• The original Dean Martin Comedy Hour handed me some hysterical sketches. I've got highlights on tons of these variety shows, given to me by their great writers. I'd love to be doing all that again.

  Ruth Buzzi

  Comedy, Hysterical, Hours

  8 Copy quote

• Listen to the Bee Gees and you can learn to be a great writer.

  Kara DioGuardi

  Bees, Bee Gees

  19 Copy quote

• Television in the last few years has been where all the great writers are going. TV now is what indie film used to be.

  Jeff Daniels

  Years, Television, Lasts

  12 Copy quote

• Since great writers communicate a vision of existence, one can't borrow their methods. The method is married to the vision.

  Norman Mailer

  Writing, Vision, Married

  4 Copy quote

• I'm not a great writer.

  E. L. James

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source