Author Quotes

Book tours are almost designed to beat out of an author any affection he has for his book.

The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.

An SF author who reads only SF will have little new to contribute, but someone with a broader experience will bring more to the table.

Readers will stay with an author, no matter what the variations in style and genre, as long as they get that sense of story, of character, of empathetic involvement.

I'm a commercial writer, not an author. Margaret Mitchell was an author. She wrote one book.

The author knows just what he wants to illustrate and how he would like it to be done.

Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.

When you read a piece of writing that you admire, send a note of thanks to the author.

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.

The dwarfed trees of the Chinese and Japanese have been noticed by every author who has written upon these countries, and all have attempted to give some description of the method by which the effect is produced.

Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather than you. Each book is unlike the others because you are not bringing the same voice to every book. I think that keeps you alive as a writer.

Well, you know, Thomas Jefferson, who was the author of the Declaration of Independence said he wouldn't have any atheists in his cabinet because atheists wouldn't swear an oath to God. That was Jefferson and we have never had any Muslims in the cabinet.

I don't think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films.

There is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author.

Life is the most versatile thing under the sun; and in the pursuit of life and character the author who works in a groove works in blinkers.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

With the marketing pressures driving the book world today, it's much easier to get the author of a memoir on a television show than a serious novelist.

The first lie of fiction is that the author gives some order to the chaos of life: chronological order, or whatever order the author chooses.

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.

One of the great currents in the contemporary experience of art is that it seems to come out of the experience of the author.

Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.

A very wise author once said that a writer writes for himself, and then publishes for money. I write for myself and publish just for the reader.

What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers.

The difference between an author and a horse is that the horse doesn't understand the horse dealer's language.

I learned a good deal about economics, and about America, from the author of the Reagan tax reforms - the great Jack Kemp. What gave Jack that incredible enthusiasm was his belief in the possibilities of free people, in the power of free enterprise and strong communities to overcome poverty and despair. We need that same optimism right now.

I wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember.

I have no problem selling books to media franchises and we do it all the time. The author must understand that he/she is a writer for hire and has no control over copyright or over editorial changes made to the text.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.