Quotes About Authorship

Elmore Leonard

Remembering Enheduanna, who signed her name to her writing, I reopened the books and signed mine: Ana. Not Ana, daughter of Matthias, or Ana, wife of Jesus. Just Ana.

laid out the quill, ink, sand, and paper.

I don't write because there's an audience. I write because there is literature.

Authors today wrote so much to a pattern that their public expected it.

Because I've not written a book before, you mean?" "No, that doesn't matter at all. Most people's first books are their best anyway; it's the one they wanted most to write. No

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.

Were those really going to be the final words of fiction I wrote?

Forget the fictional characters – how many authors are being stopped on the street?

So, why do you write these strong female characters? Because you're still asking me that question.

The best books were those uninhabited by those who wrote them.

The first sentence can't be written until the final sentence is written.

The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval.

El único modo posible para el novelista de rescatar la novela consiste en abstenerse de escribirlas

Avoid the RTP Syndrome. When you rush to Publish, you rush to mistakes and chaos. Guaranteed.

When a man writes a romance, the woman dies. When a woman writes one, it ends all tidy and sweet.

As the author of this book, however, I'd like to think I have a certain creative control over the medical conditions of my characters, so I've decided that Anthony has no allergies of any kind, and furthermore will live to the ripe old age of 92.

From Graham Greene, I learnt how to be an accessible writer who grapples with our doubts as sentient individuals.

Retiring from writing is to avoid the inevitable bitterness which a writing career is bound to deliver as its end product in almost every case.

I think the fact that I created something and had an enormous influence is indisputable.

Many bad books have had great influence.

If you're mostly a writer - if your point of departure is writing something - which for a writer/director is sort of where you start, you're really influenced by the writers you love one way or another.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

I don't believe that there is any particular book that influenced any 'career' I might have.