Quotes About Authors

I had never read Victorian novels before going overseas. I read a handful of authors, but I had not immersed myself in the literature of the 19th century.

Authors," he murmured with a grin. "You all think your work is flawless, and anyone who tries to change a single word is an idiot." "And editors consider themselves the most intelligent people they know," Amanda shot back.

Books were expensive, as well. But she'd read enough of them to know that they were only as valuable as the contents of their writers' minds—and to her it seemed that a great many writers, had they been merchants, would have precious little inventory.

After Tolkien I went after C. S. Lewis. After Lewis, it was Lloyd Alexander. After them came Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Robert Howard, John Norman, Poul Anderson, David Eddings, Weis and Hickman, Terry Brooks, Elizabeth Moon, Glen Cook

No author was immune from having his own ideas and words quoted back to him favorably. Authors were, at heart, no matter how much they blustered or how suavely they carried themselves, insecure creatures with sensitive egos, as delicate in the constitution as movie stars, only much poorer and less glamorous.

And when I read, and really I do not read so much, only a few authors, - a few men that I discovered by accident - I do this because they look at things in a broader, milder and more affectionate way than I do, and because they know life better, so that I can learn from them.

Those Grimm brothers," she said with a sigh, "they'll never amount to anything." And she was right because all they ever became was writers.

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.

I've found most authors have the wrong mental picture of the process. Instead of a sprint, publishing is more like a marathon. Slow, steady and consistent action will get you your audience and success.

Publishing in magazine is an under-used route for authors to reach readers. As a former magazine editor, I understand the power of reaching the audience…With one article, I have reached millions of people.

I can remember meeting of a Sunday night Charles Whibley, Kenneth Grahame, author of 'The Golden Age,' Barry Pain, now a well known novelist, R. A. M. Stevenson, art critic and a famous talker, George Wyndham, later on a cabinet minister and Irish chief secretary, and Oscar Wilde, who was some eight years or ten older than the rest.

I can remember meeting of a Sunday night Charles Whibley, Kenneth Grahame, author of The Golden Age, Barry Pain, now a well-known novelist, R. A. M. Stevenson, art critic and a famous talker, George Wyndham, later on a cabinet minister and Irish chief secretary, and now or later Oscar Wilde, who was some ten years older than the rest of us.

There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.

Monarchs ought to put to death the authors and instigators of war, as their sworn enemies and as dangers to their states.

Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.

The author observes of the Inklings, they make a perfect compass rose of faith: talking the Catholic, Lewis the mere Christian, Williams the Anglican, Barfield the esotericist.

the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth.

Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform --that God is not the author of all things, but of good only.

Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence.

I never give advice to young writers. They don't need someone to tell them to write something every day. The one thing I will say is: have fun with it. Don't listen to all these authors who tell you that writing is such hard work... If you go into it thinking that, it's going to be a chore for you. If you instead go, Hey! Look at me writing. I'm creating something! I'm having a good time! that's the way to go. Writing is a lot easier when you have that attitude.

Do you want to guess what's in here? I asked Dash. I think I've got it figured out already. There's a new supply of red notebooks in there, and you want us to fill them in with clues about the works of, say, Nicholas Sparks. Who? I asked. Please, no more broody poets. I couldn't keep up. You don't know who Nicholas Sparks is? Dash asked. I shook my head. Please don't ever find out, he said.

I'm no John Grisham or Thomas Pynchon

I have never met an author who did not read voraciously as a child.