Quotes About Authorship

If you would be remembered, write a book worth the reading or live a life worth the writing about.

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.

Writing for late night is really good for learning how to write when you don't want to write. You have to produce every day. It's also very good for refining the difference between your point of view and the host's.

You need to recognize that the copyright date on a book reflects when it came out, not when it was written - assume that the information in the book is at least a year older than the copyright date, and possibly two.

Now I am a writer who can command fairly good payments from magazines with large circulations, I very often refuse to write for them and still write sometimes for small magazines for nothing.

If you know anything about writing biographies, or what is regarded as a good biography, you have minimum input from the person you are writing about.

I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.

For the years I spent working on it, 'Constellation' was the only novel I knew how to write, so maybe I still abided by the maxim? Regardless, I prefer the maxim: Write what you want to know, rather than what you already know.

I don't believe in myths of decline or myths of progress, even as regards the literary scene.

I regret all of my books.

I have questioned myself about the brutality in the last few novels. Actually in 'The Leopard,' in hindsight, I feel I went a little bit too far with screaming blood. There are a couple of scenes that I regret and wish I had the chance to rewrite. 'Phantom' has less blood.

You know, I haven't written as much as most other writers. Certainly maybe those who keep a more regular schedule accomplish more.

I know people think that having a regular publisher is more prestigious, there is even this idea that self-publishing is a result of being snubbed. But self-publishing really appeals to me.

It's nice to be in a situation where the two books that I write for a sort of regular monthly income are also works that I enjoy immensely, rather than them being some kind of bread and butter, do it because you have to do it.

Let's face it - online promotion of your books could easily become a full-time career if you're not careful. But if you're not writing regularly, then it won't be long before there's nothing to promote.

I was quite satisfied with my creative life. I've always had reinforcement from a small but devoted readership.

Having 'The Expats' not be 'wholesale-y' rejected by the world made it possible for me to write the second book and have a publisher buy it before it was entirely written. And it made it easier for me and my publisher to get 'The Accident' out into the world without trying to convince people to pay attention to it the way you do for a first novel.

The expectation was that 'True Confessions' would be my first published book, but that didn't happen. After it was rejected by every publisher in New York and Canada, I shoved it in a closet and went on to write and publish my next three books.

I have been rejected 120 times, probably because I didn't write the right book.

After being rejected for years, I found a publisher for 'Keeper,' and it won prizes, and then I had to write a second and a third book because I kept taking the money and spending it.

I was twenty-seven when I began to write seriously, and after two years of rejections, my first book, 'The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo,' was accepted for publication.

I heard you had to get 200 rejections before you got published.

Every published writer, myself included, was at one time unpublished. All writers know what rejection feels like.

I don't belong to any clubs, and I dislike club mentality of any kind, even feminism - although I do relate to the purpose and point of feminism. More in the work of older feminists, really, like Germaine Greer.