Quotes About Authors

Every year the literary press praises dozens if not hundreds of novels to the skies, asserting explicitly or implicitly that these books will probably not be suffering water damage in the basements of their authors' houses 20 years from now. But historically, anyway, that's not the way the novelistic ecology works.

Britain has had a very honourable tradition of literary sci-fi - H. G. Wells, John Wyndham, J. G. Ballard, Brian Aldiss, Michael Moorcock - but for whatever reason, they have never really been given the time of day on screen.

I think the more avenues that open up when people want to publish, the better. Some of the authors that want to jump ship from the traditional houses and go on their own, you know what? Good luck. It's going to be a lot tougher than you think.

When self-publishing started, it was mostly people who really couldn't write. And they just wanted to get their book out, and they couldn't get traditional deals.

I'm especially interested in projects from authors who were always wonderful writers but who got stuck in the midlist mire due to the challenges of traditional publishing.

I think most new writers are better off going with traditional publishers who will actually, at a minimum, edit your work, package it well, and market it for you.

The real important thing about Digital-Original publication goes beyond the fact that authors make more money off each sale than through traditional publishing. It's that we get to bypass a system of gatekeepers who have more than 'quality' as criteria for what they choose.

Authors will make far more on those ebooks through direct sales than publishers are offering. There is no incentive for authors to sell those rights to traditional publishers which means, in the fairly short term, publishers run out of material to sell.

Pulp paperbacks have always provided a training ground for men, Some of them went on to become respected authors - Dean Koontz, Nelson DeMille and Martin Cruz Smith, for example. Why couldn't a woman?

As we all saw in grade school, once you learn how to read a book, somebody is going to want to write one - that's how authors are made. Once we know how to read our own genetic code, someone is going to want to rewrite that 'text,' tinker with traits - play God, some would say.

The difficulty that many foreign authors face in having their works translated into English has effects far beyond the United States.

The goal of Bible translation is be transparent to the original text - to see as clearly as possible what the biblical authors actually wrote.

In the words of Durk Pearson and Sandra Shaw, the authors of Life Extension

For the New Testament authors, Jesus' resurrection is not an isolated miracle, but a crucial revelatory disclosure concerning the nature of reality, the identity of God, and the destiny of human beings.

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.

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

all I want to do is get home and never see any of you authors ever again

As a teenager, I virtually memorized my paperback editions, greedy for insider tips about the literary life. Pound, Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, Colette, Waugh—they were all there. What has stuck with me the most over the years is their almost universal insistence on the importance of revision, of revising and revising again.

Politicians are much like aging authors and older women. The dangerous phase in their lives is when they are no longer content with the respect of friends but demand the adulation of an audience.

I have never had the lust to meet famous authors; the best of them is in their books.

Herta Muller, Mo Yan, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio - for many of us, the Nobels have become doubly educational: We simultaneously learn of an author's existence and find out that we ought to have been reading him or her all along.

Academic scientists aren't generally interested in books for the public. So when one comes out, the authors can't expect much praise from scientists. My goal both as a singer and an instructor is to educate through provocation and entertainment.

Every single day, authors read at bookstores and libraries - and coffeeshops and bars - all over the country. And these readings are amazing: you get to hear the book in the author's own voice, ask questions, and meet the writer. For free.

I'm glad nobody has asked me to adapt 'Wuthering Heights' because I think I would make a mess of it. Everybody makes a mess of it. I think the Bronte Sisters are mad.