Quotes About Authors

I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.

Ironically, Latin American countries, in their instability, give writers and intellectuals the hope that they are needed.

In comparing various authors with one another, I have discovered that some of the gravest and latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making acknowledgment.

To practice - write each and every day if possible - then try to attend professional writer's conferences where you can learn your craft, get to know fellow writers, and meet editors and agents.

I went through a big Kurt Vonnegut phase. But the writers who made me decide at a very early age that this is probably something I wanted to do were Stephen King and Douglas Adams, when I was probably, like, ten years old.

That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.

I like a lot of Margaret Atwood, I like much of Alice Munro. Again, if you were to ask me about male writers, there's often a novel I admire, but not all of their works.

The best writers who have put pen to paper have often had a journalism background.

Many science-fiction writers, such as Gregory Benford, are working scientists. Many others, such as Joe Haldeman, have advanced degrees in science. Others, like me, have backgrounds in science and technology journalism.

The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers.

Writers have always been very underrated.

Our only solace as writers is in the work itself, and perhaps also in a penchant for blissful ignorance that allows us to gamble, to risk, to keep going where others would tote up the odds and stop.

I felt like my favorite writers have almost musical hooks in their work, whether it's poetry or a hook at the end of a chapter that makes you want to read the next one. And I think that my favorite writers definitely have something musical about what they do, in saying something so relatable and universal and so simple.

Nicholas Sparks and John Green are very different writers.

I still think most writers are just kids who refuse to grow up. We're still playing imaginary games, with our imaginary friends.

Writers' bedtimes vary, but few have been spared the shock of a copy editor's early wake-up call.

Writers collect stories of rituals: John Cheever putting on a jacket and tie to go down to the basement, where he kept a desk near the boiler room. Keats buttoning up his clean white shirt to write in, after work.

You know what writers say about their long books: If I had another year, the book would be half as long.

I think writers are prone to hyperbole sometimes.

I worked with several writers at the University of Michigan: Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, Eileen Pollack, Laura Kasischke, and Thomas Lynch, who told me the same thing over and over again: Persist. Read, write, and improve: tell your stories.

I think my fascination is less with genre figures than with writers in general.

I love to read. And right now I'm on my last hundred pages of 'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen, and I really enjoyed it. His writing is just - he's one of those writers where you just go, 'There are people just meant to be novel writers.'

Philosophers write for professors; thinkers for writers.

My breakthrough as a reader was when I discovered the European adventure story writers - Alexander Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, to name a few.