Authors

"Writers collect things. We read magazines, we ride buses and eavesdrop on other people's conversations, we stop and read posters on telephone poles, we examine soup cans and old clothing stores and babies and pets and sewer covers and weather reports. We delve into ancient history, old gossip, rumors, hints of rumors, maps, brochures, irrelevant details, bad advice, good omens, lucky stars, and things that are nobody's business. In short, we are called to be witnesses. Things may happen, but unless someone takes note of it, it might not matter."

"“But you really are, you know.” This was said with intense earnestness. “I mean good, really good. I think it is wonderful to be an author like you. It must be almost like being God.” Graham stared blankly. “Not to editors, sister.” Sister didn’t get the whisper. She continued, “To be able to create living characters out of nothing; to unfold souls to all the world; to put thoughts into words; to build pictures and create worlds. I have often thought that an author was the most gloriously gifted person in all creation. Better an inspired author starving in a garret than a king upon his throne. Don’t you think so?” “Definitely,” lied Graham."

"Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear Glean after what it can."

"There is probably no hell for authors in the next world — they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this."

"And force them, though it was in spite Of Nature and their stars, to write."

"But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think."

"But every fool describes, in these bright days, His wondrous journey to some foreign court, And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise,— Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport."

"And hold up to the sun my little taper."

"All I knew then was what I couldn't do. All I knew then was what I wasn't, and it took me some years to discover what I was. Which was a writer. By which I mean not a “good” writer or a “bad” writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper."

"An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. (9 December 1852)"

"Les sots font le texte, et les hommes d'esprit les commentaires."

"I like the idea of a literary patchwork, novel by novel, poem by poem, by different writers, mapping out an era, 'a continent' more and more thoroughly. No one writer can do it."

"There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured."

"But I did not explain to you the other insidious aspect of writing. There is no way to stop. Writers go on writing long after it becomes financially unnecessary...because it hurts less to write than it does not to write."

"Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, sequam Viribus."

"Tantum series juncturaque pollet."

"Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons."

"Nonumque prematur in annum."

"There are two things which I am confident I can do very well; one is an introduction to any literary work, stating what it is to contain, and how it should be executed in the most perfect manner."

"A man may write at any time if he set himself doggedly to it."

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."

"Later on in life you will learn that writers are merely open, helpless texts with no real understanding of what they have written and therefore must half-believe anything and everything that is said of them. You, however, have not yet reached this stage of literary criticism."

"It is the rust we value, not the gold; Authors, like coins, grow dear, as they grow old."

"I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts."

""Tis hard to say if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging ill; But, of the two less dang'rous is th' offence To tire our patience than mislead our sense."

"Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, But are not critics to their judgment too?"

"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance."

"In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend."

"I hold to my old romantic belief that writers of all times and places belong to a noble fellowship; that although they are the voices of their own cultures and languages, they transcend these boundaries."

"what is writing if not a form of confession in disguise? No matter what the subject, all literary roads lead back to the self. The writer descends like a miner into the deepest shafts of her soul in order to unearth the blackest coals of her torment, or to retrieve the most glittering diamonds of her memories, and bring them back to the surface in the form of fictions that she wishes to share with the world."

"In an age when many people lived on less than two dollars a day, his income rose to as much as a hundred thousand dollars a year. He was the highest paid writer in America, and it was widely reported that his magazine contributions could earn a dollar a word. In fact, his last contract with Harper & Brothers guaranteed him only a third of that, but it was still a better deal than anyone else could have expected, and he always insisted on a strict word count from his editors, even going so far as to demand that hyphenated words be counted as two. Legend has it that when an admirer enclosed a dollar with a request for his autograph, he replied not with his signature but with the single word "Thanks," in accordance with his rumored rate."

"Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic."

"As was the case in the 1950s, the 1970s, and now in 2024, writers sometimes exist in perilous times, balancing careers between the tick and tock of the Right and the Left, when a single misstep or perceived endorsement can be a terminal mistake."

"Writers are engineers of human souls."

"Authors—essayist, atheist, novelist, realist, rhymester, play your part, Paint the mortal shame of nature with the living hues of art."

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

"I agree with Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini that the writer should serve his society. I differ with dictators as to how writers should serve."

"But you're our partic'lar author, you're our patron an' our friend, You're the poet of the cuss-word an' the swear."

"This dull product of a scoffer's pen."

"Ideas are free. But while the author confines them to his study, they are like birds in a cage, which none but he can have a right to let fly : for till he thinks proper to emancipate them, they are under his own dominion."

"The invention of an author is a species of property unknown to the common law of England. Its usages are immemorial; and the views of it tend to the benefit and advantage of the public with respect to the necessaries of life, and not to the improvement and graces of mind."

"Some write, confin'd by physic; some, by debt; Some, for 'tis Sunday; some, because 'tis wet; Another writes because his father writ, And proves himself a bastard by his wit."

"An author! 'tis a venerable name! How few deserve it, and what numbers claim! Unbless'd with sense above their peers refined, Who shall stand up dictators to mankind? Nay, who dare shine, if not in virtue's cause? That sole proprietor of just applause."

"For who can write so fast as men run mad?"

"Some future strain, in which the muse shall tell How science dwindles, and how volumes swell. How commentators each dark passage shun, And hold their farthing candle to the sun."

"And then, exulting in their taper, cry, "Behold the Sun;" and, Indian-like, adore."

"It is certainly not agreeable to natural justice that a stranger should reap the beneficial pecuniary produce of another man's work."

"A writer's fame will not be the less, that he has bread, without being under the necessity of prostituting his pen to flattery or party, to get it."

"He who engages in a laborious work (such, for instance, as Johnson's Dictionary) which may employ his whole life, will do it with more spirit if, besides his own Glory, he thinks it may be a provision for his family."

"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."

"Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw from them as from wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and the bones."

"A man of moderate Understanding, thinks he writes divinely: A man of good Understanding, thinks he writes reasonably."

"A man starts upon a sudden, takes Pen, Ink, and Paper, and without ever having had a thought of it before, resolves within himself he will write a Book; he has no Talent at Writing, but he wants fifty Guineas."

"And so I penned It down, until at last it came to be, For length and breadth, the bigness which you see."

"Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind."

"The book that he has made renders its author this service in return, that so long as the book survives, its author remains immortal and cannot die."

"Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length; Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear."

"La pluma es lengua del alma."

"Apt Alliteration's artful aid."

"That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time."

"Habits of close attention, thinking heads, Become more rare as dissipation spreads, Till authors hear at length one general cry Tickle and entertain us, or we die!"

"None but an author knows an author's cares, Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears."

"So that the jest is clearly to be seen, Not in the words— but in the gap between; Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ, The substitute for genius, sense, and wit."

"Oh! rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain; Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun."

"Aucun fiel n'a jamais empoisonne ma plume."

"Smelling of the lamp."

"Gracious heavens!" he cries out, leaping up and catching hold of his hair, "what's this? Print!"

"And choose an author as you choose a friend."

"The men, who labour and digest things most, Will be much apter to despond than boast; For if your author be profoundly good, 'Twill cost you dear before he's understood."

"When I want to read a book I write one."

"The author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children."

"The unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood, Yet only eats and drinks what you think good."

"All writing comes by the grace of God, and all doing and having."

"For no man can write anything who does not think that what he writes is, for the time, the history of the world."

"The lover of letters loves power too."

"The writer, like a priest, must be exempted from secular labor. His work needs a frolic health; he must be at the top of his condition."

"Like his that lights a candle to the sun."

"Envy's a sharper spur than pay: No author ever spar'd a brother; Wits are gamecocks to one another."

"The most original modern authors are not so because they advance what is new, but simply because they know how to put what they have to say, as if it had never been said before."

"One writer, for instance, excels at a plan, or a title-page, another works away the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index."

""The Republic of Letters" is a very common expression among the Europeans."

"Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse."

"His [Burke's] imperial fancy has laid all nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the creation and every walk of art."

"Whatever an author puts between the two covers of his book is public property; whatever of himself he does not put there is his private property, as much as if he had never written a word."

"But every little busy scribbler now Swells with the praises which he gives himself; And, taking sanctuary in the crowd, Brags of his impudence, and scorns to mend."

"Deferar in vicum vendentem thus et odores, Et piper, et quicquid chartis amicitur ineptis."

"Piger scribendi ferre laborem; Scribendi recte, nam ut multum nil moror."

"Saepe stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint Scripturus."

"Written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond."

"He [Milton] was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry stones."

"Each change of many-coloured life he drew, Exhausted worlds and then imagined new* Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil'd after him in vain."

"The chief' glory of every people arises from its authors."

"Tenet insanabile multo Scribendi cacoethes, et asgro in corde senescit."

"Damn the age; I will write for Antiquity."

"To write much, and to write rapidly, are empty boasts. The world desires to know what you have done, and not how you did it."

"If you once understand an author's character, the comprehension of his writings becomes easy."

"Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is told in a single word* Wait!"

"Whatever hath been written shall remain, Nor be erased nor written o'er again; The unwritten only still belongs to thee* Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be."

"Look, then, into thine heart and write!"

"It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century."

"He that commeth in print because he woulde be knowen, is like the foole that commeth into the Market because he woulde be seen."

"He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who writes verses builds it in granite."

"No author ever drew a character, consistent to human nature, but what he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies."

"You do not publish your own verses, Laelius; you criticise mine. Pray cease to criticise mine, or else publish your own."

"Jack writes severe lampoons on me, 'tis said—But he writes nothing, who is never read."

"He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whole book full of them?"

"The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr."

"To write upon all is an author's sole chance For attaining, at last, the least knowledge of any."

"Prsebet mihi littera linguam: Et, si non liceat scribere, mutus ero."

"Scriptaferuntannos; scriptis Agamemnona nosti, Et quisquis contra vel simul arma tulit."

"Why did I write? what sin to me unknown Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came."

"E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art—the art to blot."

"Whether the darken'd room to muse invite, Or whiten'd wall provoke the skew'r to write; In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print."

"Let him be kept from paper, pen, and ink; So may he cease to write, and learn to think."

"'Tis not how well an author says, But 'tis how much, that gathers praise."

"As though I lived to write, and wrote to live."

"Lis ont les textes pour eux, mais j'en suis fache pour les textes."

"Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio."

"Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears Moist it again, and frame some feeling line That may discover such integrity."

"Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well."

"Look in thy heart and write."

"The great and good do not die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens."

"Ah, ye knights of the pen! May honour be your shield, and truth tip your lances ! Be gentle to all gentle people. Be modest to women. Be tender to children. And as for the Ogre Humbug, out sword, and have at him!"

"What the devil does the plot signify, except to bring in fine things?"

"So must the writer, whose productions should Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould."

"Smooth verse, inspired by no unlettered Muse."