Quotes About Writers

The Holy Prophet also spent a part of his life in this manner and most of the writers of 'Seerah' have quoted this sentence from him: "All the Prophets have been shepherds for some time before attaining to the position of prophethood". The people asked the Prophet: "Have you too been a shepherd?" He replied: "Yes. For some time I grazed the sheep of the people of Makkah in Qarareet area".

How should you read? What should the diet of your reading be? Read the best writers from all different periods; keep your reading of contemporaries in proportion—you do not want a steady diet of contemporary literature. You already belong to your time.

Read the best writers from all different periods; keep your reading of contemporaries in proportion - you do not want a steady diet of contemporary literature. You already belong to your time.

There are modern writers on law that may be as valuable as Moses; there are poems of Browning and Tennyson and our own Whittier that are far more pervaded with the Christlike spirit than some on the Hebrew Psalmody. But there is no life like the life of Christ.

It is the custom when praising a Russian writer to do so at the expense of all other Russian writers.

What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?

I could give you a number of examples to show how widespread has been this practice of mutual pilfering among the authors of our old literature.... by transferring something of theirs to his own immortal work he [Virgil] has ensured that the memory of these old writers—whom, as the tastes of today show, we are already beginning to deride as well as to neglect—should not wholly perish.

The Mason-Dixon line can almost be said to be the Okra Line, that is, historically: As a rule, Southern writers gave receipts for okra, even when their works were published in the North. Northern writers did not, with the exception of those of Philadelphia, an anomaly explained by the early presence of West Indians who came to very nearly dominate the catering business in that city.

Some writers are seasoned raconteurs with an endless supply of stories and quips and one-liners. Others are reclusive and introverted souls who labor in their solitary worlds and struggle to mix and mingle.

but writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.

There's nothing I need or want to know from the writers I admire that isn't in their books. It's better to read a good writer than meet one.

YOUR BOREDOM IS YOUR PROBLEM, said Owen Meany. IT'S YOUR LACK OF IMAGINATION THAT BORES YOU. HARDY HAS THE WORLD FIGURED OUT. TESS IS DOOMED. FATE HAS IT IN FOR HER. SHE'S A VICTIM; IF YOU'RE A VICTIM, THE WORLD WILL USE YOU. WHY SHOULD SOMEONE WHO'S GOT SUCH A WORKED-OUT WAY OF SEEING THE WORLD BORE YOU? WHY SHOULDN'T YOU BE INTERESTED IN SOMEONE WHO'S WORKED OUT A WAY TO SEE THE WORLD? THAT'S WHAT MAKES WRITERS INTERESTING!

Writers simply have to accept readers who prefer other writers.

Writers who have any audience have more readers than they know. Juan Diego was more famous than he thought.

None of this excuses anyone from mastering the basic ideas and terminology of economics. The intelligent layman must expect also to encounter good economists who are difficult writers even though some of the best have been very good writers. He should know, moreover, that at least for a few great men ambiguity of expression has been a positive asset. But with these exceptions he may safely conclude that what is wholly mysterious in economics is not likely to be important.

Writers come in two principal categories -- those who are overtly insecure and those who are covertly insecure.

Young writers find out what kinds of writers they are by experiment. If they choose from the outset to practice exclusively a form of writing because it is praised in the classroom or otherwise carries appealing prestige, they are vastly increasing the risk inherent in taking up writing in the first place.

As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones.

A powerful flight of the imagination . . . an entirely enjoyable reading experience, wrought by a pair of writers noted for excellence.

Finding people who get enormous pleasure from reading books is a more and more unusual experience, and so writers just so much want to be heard.

I'm fascinated by the magic realism used by many writers. I think it goes hand-in-hand with the Indian experience. It's a very different way of viewing the world.

My experience tells me that any time you hear people laughing on a sitcom, it's the writers who happen to be closest to the microphones - not the audience.

A sweeping statement is the only statement worth listening to. The critic without faith gives balanced opinions, usually about second-rate writers.

My feeling is that I think writers in general tend to be self-conscious and it takes a bit of a leap of faith or just not giving a sh-t to write something you know people are going to criticize.