Quotes About Author

There is no reason why any sane person should read Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. It is one of the worst books ever written by an American, shoddy, meretricious and without any redeeming social value.

Kind of bloodthirsty, don't you think, Charles? said John. I'm an editor, said Charles. I have to make decisions like that all the time.

A really well-done first draft of a book bares your soul. The purpose of revision is so that everyone who reads the published version believes you were writing about theirs.

The Cavelries hear and their short and furrie

Some of us got our reputations because we wrote good books or had clever publicists. He got his reputation through sheer hard work.

man, therefore, as the lord and master of thought, is the maker of himself the shaper and author of environment.

The greatest blessedness comes to him, who infuses into his mind the purest and noblest thoughts.

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.

And then: 'Here comes your baby. Sois sage. Sois chic.' He moved slightly away and began talking to the boy next to him. And here my baby came indeed, through all that sunlight, his face flushed and his hair flying, his eyes, unbelievably, like morning stars.

In those days my mother was given to the exasperating and mysterious habit of having babies.

It was his hatred and his intelligence that he cherished, the one feeding the other.

despair, whether or not can be taken home and placed in the family table, must always be respected. Despair can make one monstrous, but it can also make one noble.

Since Negroes have been in this country their one major, devastating gain was their Emancipation, an emancipation no one regards any more as having been dictated by humanitarian impulses.

Thursday's great event was Aimé Cesaire's speech in the afternoon, dealing with the relation between colonization and culture.

I had been well conditioned by the world in which I grew up, so I did not yet dare take the idea of becoming a writer seriously.

We go down the hall again, thank heaven, to my drink.

He had often thought of his loneliness, for example, as a condition which testified to his superiority.

the slackness of their bodies making vivid the history of their degradation

Of course, I must say that I don't think America is God's gift to anybody—if it is, God's days have got to be numbered. That God these people say they serve—and do serve, in ways that they don't know—has got a very nasty sense of humor. Like you'd beat the shit out of Him, if He was a man. Or: if you were.

The spreading of the Gospel, regardless of the motives or the integrity or the heroism of some of the missionaries, was an absolutely indispensable justification for the planting of the flag.

I do a lot of rewriting. It's very painful.

The author must destroy our myths and give us back our histories, which will destroy our attitudes and give us back our personalities.

the whole motion of the figure is torment. It seemed a very strange figure for such a young kid to do, or, at least, it seemed strange until you thought about it.

Trouble is, I feel too paternal towards you, you son of a bitch." "That's the trouble with all you white bastards.