Quotes About Literature

Once you publish a book, it is out of your control. You cannot dictate how people read it.

When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.

I am not scared of anyone. I will write and publish my books.

I started out as a novelist and wrote several novels before deciding to publish one, and I fully intend to go back to the form.

Many years, I would publish four books - an anthology, a book of criticism, a new book of poems, a book of essays.

When I finally began to publish, my father never read my work. He'd say, 'Oh, that's your mother's sort of thing.' But my mother found the books rather upsetting. I figure she read just enough to know that she didn't want to go there.

As I see it, my job has always been to champion the work of the authors I publish.

People either fall into two camps, where they're pro-fanfic, or they're anti-fanfic. I would not have had the skills to write and publish my first novel if I hadn't been writing fanfic.

I am not sure when it became de rigueur for presidential candidates to publish a work between hard covers, but nobody now runs for high office without having written, or having arranged for the ghostwriting of, a very large book.

When 'Catch Me If You Can' was published back in 1980, I never dreamed that it would become a bestseller, much less a major motion picture and now a big Broadway musical. What's amazing about the book is that it has never gone out of print.

My stuff gets published in some countries as fiction and in some countries as fantasy. It's just where they think it will do best in the bookshops.

There are 2,000 young-adult novels published a year, and hardly any of them ever break out.

I didn't get anything published until I was thirty-three, and yet I'd written five novels and six or seven plays. The plays, I should point out, were dreadful.

The best way to learn to write is to read in the genre you might be interested in; then, you need to actually sit down and write. In a lot of cases, the first book you write will not get published. Do not get hung up on that. Start a second book.

I've been writing fiction since I was a kid. From the age of 15 to 25, I probably wrote more than 50 short stories, one of which was published in 'The Paris Review' in 1989.

As always, a lot of bad books will be published. Some good books will be published, and you have to seek them out.

I've never been a true fan of the short story and have only published a single example of my own.

Fashion is fickle, and I was published because I was fashionable. Because I was gay.

The difference is this: If you write a good book, it'll get published. If you have a great screenplay, there is no guarantee.

I have been writing poetry since 1975. My first poetry book was published in 1986.

My first collection of poems was published by Bloodaxe Books, which was then a very new imprint.

Well - I started writing - probably in the early 60s and by say '65-'66 I had read most of the poetry that had been published - certainly in the 20 years prior to that.

The hard fact is that not everyone does get published.

But the first published thing I did was a detective story, detective novel, and I did that on my own.