Quotes About Authorship

I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself.

Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.

I enjoy writing, sometimes; I think that most writers will tell you about the agony of writing more than the joy of writing, but writing is what I was meant to do.

I'm always amazed by writers who tell me they plan everything at the beginning. I feel their writing days must be very bland.

Perhaps, all writers walk such a line. In general - as we all do in our dreams - I believe I put something of myself into all the characters in my novels, male as well as female.

I hope to read a Harry Potter novel soon, to see what it's all about. I admit to being annoyed that many good light fantasy writers have had trouble getting published, in England and elsewhere, when it is obvious the readers were waiting for us all along.

I think the special thing about Python is that it's a writers' commune. The writers are in charge. The writers decide what the material is.

Obviously, a writer can't know everything about what she writes. It's impossible.

I don't write the books. God writes the books and delivers the speeches.

Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear, and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses, he will endure or be forgotten.

I am not like Stephen King, who writes one book, then writes another. I finish a book and go off and... look for wrecks. Then, six months later, I might start another book.

A publisher who writes is like a cow in a milk bar.

The advantage of being the creator of the character is I know them better than anybody, I like to think. But the reality one has to deal with in a serial collaborative medium like comics is that you're not the only one who writes the character.

An author writes a book, and that's the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

From time to time, as if heaven-sent to annoy, someone will ask me if I'm self-disciplined when it comes to my work. I usually look witheringly at them and snarl, 'What do you think?' I mean, how do you imagine anyone writes a quarter of a million words a year for publication?

I wanted to be Carrie Vaughn the awesome writer, not the chick who writes the 'Kitty' books.

Brother Jones is not my product, and I am not responsible for anything he writes or says.

I am the only British writer who writes in Spanish.

Anybody who writes doesn't like to be misunderstood.

When I'm the one who sits down and looks at the blank page and writes it out all the way, then I'll call it my script.

No one writes a great book every time out, or even a good book.

I don't even know how to define myself. I'm a person who writes. It's something I enjoy, and hopefully people enjoy it as well.

In 2011, I announced that I was going to retire, and my agent panicked. So she says: 'No, no, no. You have to write a book with your husband.' My husband is a writer of crime novels. His name is William Gordon. And so I had to accommodate to his style because that's what he writes. So we decided we'd give it a try. Well, we almost divorced.

That's the thing: once it's in their hands, it's not my book anymore, it's theirs. I have no idea what happens when they start to digest it. So when someone writes me to explain how they read it, what it was like, what they enjoyed, there's a thrill. Writers who don't make their email addresses public are missing out on something wonderful.