Authors

"“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."

"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."