Quotes About Authors

Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.

Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.

NEFARIOUS means utterly, completely wicked. The character in The Wizard of Oz could have been called the Nefarious Witch of the West but authors like to use the same beginning consonant, often. Perhaps L. Frank Baum crossed out nefarious after wicked came to his mind. Thank goodness, because Nefarious would be a terrible name for a musical.

I really learned how to write from Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, and de Maupassant.

As for sinning, most of the things he enjoyed were sins in the eyes of somebody. Except for reading…and most of his books were written by pagan authors.

Short Perfect Novels Too Loud a Solitude, by Bohumil Hrabel Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson Sula, by Toni Morrison The Shadow-Line, by Joseph Conrad The All of It, by Jeannette Haine Winter in the Blood, by James Welch Swimmer in the Secret Sea, by William Kotzwinkle The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald First Love, by Ivan Turgenev Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf Waiting for the Barbarians, by J. M. Coetzee Fire on the Mountain, by Anita Desai

Por primera vez en la historia de la Humanidad hay tantas autoras como autores; por primera vez nuestra voz es tan pública como la de ellos

Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.

I think the thing that interests most actors these days is the strength and the quality of the writing. I think that's the main thing.

A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of the general public.

nous n'eûmes plus de repos que nous n'eussions retrouvé, dans les ouvrages contemporains, une trace quelconque de ces noms extraordinaires qui avaient fort

short time ago, while making researches in the Royal Library for my History of Louis XIV, I stumbled by chance upon the Memoirs of M. d'Artagnan, printed—as were most of the works of that period, in which authors could not tell the truth without the risk of a residence, more or less long, in the Bastille—at Amsterdam, by Pierre Rouge.

Germans Francis Grund, and Francis Lieber, and the Pole Adam G. de Gurowski all wrote about the striking social equality they found in America, the absence of differences in status. They all noted the American obsession with work and the restless quest for the "almighty dollar."18

It is one of the strongest bonds, I think, that can spring up between people: sharing a passion for certain books and their authors.

She liked things that had been written by people who had lived short, ugly, and tragic lives. Or, who at least, were English.

Si alguna vez estamos inclinados a enorgullecernos de nuestro conocimiento bíblico, debemos abrir cualquier volumen de John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, o Thomas Brooks, observar cómo se cita algún pasaje desconocido de Nahum seguido de un pasaje conocido de Juan —donde ambos ilustran perfectamente el punto que está planteando el escritor—, luego comparar nuestro conocimiento con el de ellos.

And I like those authors best whose scenes describe my own situation in life-- and the friends who are about me whose stories touch me with interest, from resembling my own homely existence.

To the question: How do the authors of sketches, stories and novels get along in life, the following answer can or must be given: They are stragglers and they are down at heel.

I really learned how to write from Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, and de Maupassant.

Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God?

It is I who am sorry," said Miss Lavish. "We literary hacks are shameless creatures. I believe there's no secret of the human heart into which we wouldn't pry.

Lay down a method also for your reading; let it be in a consistent and consecutive course, and not in that desultory and unmethodical manner, in which many people read scraps of different authors, upon different subjects.

There are only two living American authors fully deserving of the Nobel Prize. One is Lewis Mumford. The other is Wallace Stegner, whose novels and essays provide us a comprehensive portrait of industrial society in all its glittering corruption and radiant evil.

I might also say, regarding reviews and reviewers, that I have yet to read a review of any of my own books which I could not have written much better myself.