It’s very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–77) American Novelist, Essayist, Autobiographer
Art, it seems to me, should simplify finding what conventions of form and what detail one can do without and yet preserve the spirit of the whole—so that all that one has suppressed and cut away is there to the reader’s consciousness as much as if it were in type on the page.
—Willa Cather (1873–1947) American Novelist, Writer
The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession.
—George Sand (1804–76) French Novelist, Dramatist
When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
The role of the writer is not simply to arrange Being according to his own lights; he must also serve as a medium to Being and remain open to its often unfathomable dictates. This is the only way the work can transcend its creator and radiate its meaning further than the author himself can see or perceive.
—Vaclav Havel (1936–2011) Czech Dramatist, Statesman
I’d rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.
—Ken Kesey (1935–2001) American Counterculture Novelist
Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Undermining experience, embellishing experience, rearranging and enlarging experience into a species of mythology.
—Philip Roth (1933–2018) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Would you not like to try all sorts of lives—one is so very small—but that is the satisfaction of writing—one can impersonate so many people.
—Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand-born British Author
If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Every writer “creates” his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
But this I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master—something that at times strangely wills and works for itself. If the result be attractive, the World will praise you, who little deserve praise; if it be repulsive, the same World will blame you, who almost as little deserve blame.
—Charlotte Bronte (1816–1855) English Novelist, Poet
The reading of a poem should be an experience. Its writing must be all the more so.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals; or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Nothing contributes to the entertainment of the reader more, than the change of times and the vicissitudes of fortune.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.
—William Zinsser (1922–2015) American Writer, Editor, Literary Critic, Teacher
The writer does the most good who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English Clergyman, Essayist, Wit
There is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.
—Joan Didion (1934–2021) American Essayist, Novelist, Memoirist
Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German Literary and Marxist Critic
All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
I don’t like to be described as a Southern writer. The danger is, if you’re described as a Southern writer, you might be thought of as someone who writes about a picturesque local scene like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Gone With the Wind, something like that.
—Walker Percy (1916–90) American Novelist
Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.
—Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) Romanian-American Writer, Professor, Activist
Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in it use.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
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