Quotes About Authors

I was sorry to have my name mentioned among the great authors because they have a sad habit of dying off

All afternoon, I read. I fall asleep once as well, no disrespect to the writers.

Newcomers from Paris transmitted to us Goebbels' ironic congratulations on our cordial reception in the Land of Freedom. Voelkischer Beobachter, the official Nazi organ, published a list of anti-Nazi authors interned in France, asking them whether they still clung to the blessings of democracy. It was cheap irony, but it cut to the quick; it hurt and stung and burnt.

One of the most incredible secrets of science fiction (although one not too closely guarded) is the fact that 99 percent of its authors do not know even the titles and authors of today's learned works, but still they want to top these scholars with their knowledge of the year 6000.

Life is sometimes novel-shaped, mocking the efforts of those authors who, in an effort to make their novels life-shaped, spurn the easy symmetry and cheap resonance of reality.

I am always chilled and astonished by the would-be writers who ask me for advice and admit, quite blithely, that they don't have time to read. This is like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he didn't have time to buy any rope or pitons.

I can't lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are lots of bad writers.

The reason authors almost always put a dedication on a book is, because their selfishness even horrifies themselves in the end.

Most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it's good, not why it doesn't when it's bad.

Hicks was examining the paperbacks Maura had culled from the shelves: Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Joe Hill.

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel and The Marlowe Papers by Ros Barber—are set several centuries ago.

Zane Grey, Max Brand, and Louis L'Amour

...have the same Use with Burning-Glasses, to collect the diffus'd Rays of Wit and Learning in Authors, and make them point with Warmth and Quickness upon the Reader's Imagination.

Beware of books. They are more than innocent assemblages of paper and ink and string and glue. If they are any good, they have the spirit of the author within. Authors are rogues and ruffians and easy lays. They are gluttons for sweets and savories. They devour life and always want more. They have sap, spirit, sex. Books are panderers. The Jews are not wrong to worship books. A real book has pheromones and sprouts grass through its cover.

For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries—to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.

I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first.

If anything, Twitter helps me read about perspectives outside of mainstream media and learn about new authors, artists, and ideas that I don't always get exposed to in my regular media diet.

Different authors write different ways, have different relationships with their audiences, and those are all legitimate.

I've read plenty of J.G. Ballard, but I'm not really a Ballardian. I've met Ballardians, and I know when I can't compete. I like Ballard in his relatively unchallenging apocalyptic mode: 'Vermilion Sands,' 'The Drowned World,' 'The Burning World,' 'The Crystal World.'

I sometimes wonder why I do so much research - I look at other successful writers, and I think it must just be so relaxing to write about flying horses or something, but I have to make it plausible.

The best writers attempt to become alternative historians.

Authors should be honored only for their works.

Horror does not interest me, and so I know little of its practicioners, old or current.

I know how hard authors work on their books and how far out of their element many are when it comes to doing the sales and marketing. So when I see someone doing it wrong and giving bad advice, I do my best to help - even when they're not my clients.