Quotes About Literature

Words are the basic tools, if you are a writer.

I am a writer and not a judge.

Certainly the highest posthumous praise that can be conferred upon any writer is the assertion that his or her writing permanently altered the literary landscape for the better, opening new textual doors and engaging new readers. That the author's oeuvre was essential and irreplaceable and transformative.

George Orwell is a pinnacle writer, for his combination of moral insight and literary writing.

I'm the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

I don't have a whole bunch of literary connections. I don't write reviews or attend writer's conferences. I'm kind of shy and don't want to go to a party. I just want to stay home and read my murder mysteries and try to write and cook dinner.

When you combine something to say with the skill to say it properly, then you've got a good writer.

I had no ambition to be a writer because the books I read were too good, my standards were too high.

Abdias do Nascimento was the first writer who gave me racial consciousness. It was through his books and writings that I first took in the real weight of race in our society. He was the main influence on me because in my family, race was never an issue.

It's hard to read good fiction when I am writing, because if it is really good I catch myself sort of inadvertently imitating a great writer.

Charles McCarry is the best modern writer on the subject of intrigue - by the breadth of Alan Furst, by the fathom of Eric Ambler, by any measure.

I call Algonquin Books 'the gods and goddesses of publishing.' Not only did they give me a career, they care deeply about every writer in their flock.

The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.

My father was a very prolific writer and he left behind a huge body of unpublished work.

I'm not ever getting a Pulitzer prize and my books aren't on high school reading lists, but for better or worse I'm a working writer.

A great writer requires a great biography, and a great biography must tell the truth.

I firmly believe that there is no better thriller writer than Harlan Coben.

Novels can be a snapshot of a moment in time, or several moments in time, and as a reader, that's what I really like, and as a writer, it's what I'm drawn to also.

When I was young, I kept trying to read 'Moby-Dick', and I couldn't get that far into it. And I kept thinking, 'Well, man, if I can't read the great American novel, I could never be a writer.' And this bothered me a great deal.

The first time I went to Helene Hanff's apartment at 305 East 72nd Street, it was 1977, and I was a 16-year-old girl who wanted to be a writer.

A writer should care about one thing - the language. To write well - that is his duty. That is his only duty.

Unlike a state, a writer cannot plead the historical necessity of his actions.

It is rarely that you see an American writer who is not hopelessly sane.

I am neither an Occidental writer nor a Russian writer. I am an accidental writer.