Quotes About Authorship

I mean, I'm in the business of storytelling, not message making.

I've been able to write at least one book a year for 20 years, and I don't think I would've had that kind of drive if I hadn't come out of the journalism business.

Writers now are putting total faith in designers at Apple and Amazon. It's almost like a race-car driver having no input into how cars are designed.

Don't use your advance to buy an antique sports car, diamonds by the yard, or a bottle of wine from Thomas Jefferson's cellar instead of investing in your book.

Anyone can write one book: even politicians do it. Starting a second book reveals an intention to be a professional writer.

escribiendo por completo cada palabra, incluso los números, para alargar lo más posible el proceso de escribir, en el que se sentía seguro. (pág 53)

Every writer must acknowledge and be able to handle the unalterable fact that he has, in effect, given himself a life sentence in solitary confinement.

For a moment he felt almost as though he were back in his old life, not 'Lamar Burgess' but Don Wanderley, one-time resident of Bolinas, California, and author of two novels (one of which had made some money). Lover for a time of Alma Mobley, brother to defunct David Wanderley.

Never walk over a writer, I said to myself, unless you're positive he can't rise up behind you. If you're going to burn him, make sure he's dead. Because if he's alive, he will talk: talk in written form, on the printed, permanent page.

It's important to put it like that: not "I am a writer," but rather "I write stories." If you put the emphasis on yourself rather than your work, you're in danger of thinking that you're the most important thing. But you're not. The story is what matters, and you're only the servant. Your job is to get it out on time and in good order.

I was sure that I was going to write stories myself when I grew up. It's important to put it like that - not I am a writer, but rather I write stories. If you put the emphasis on yourself rather than your work, you're in danger of thinking that you're the most important thing. But you're not. The story is what matters, and you're only the servant, and your job is to get it out on time and in good order.

He picked up a book that lay on the floor. "Are you reading this?" he said. It was Simon Talbot's The Constant Deceiver. "Yes," she said. "I'm not sure about it." "That should please him.

Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. The illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on.

Don't judge it. Just write it. Don't judge it. It's not for you to judge it. Interview in Esquire Magazine 10/10

When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.

they'll say, 'He never recovered from that breakdown and this was the result. It had to be the breakdown--not even he was that dreadful a novelist.

I finally went back to my seat in the second row and sat there doing what I've done throughout my professional life: I tried to think, first, how to make credible a somewhat extreme, if not outright ridiculous story, and, next, how, after telling it, to fortify and defend myself from the affronted who read into the story an intention having perhaps to do less with the author's perversity than with their own.

All of this was why, from Quahsay, I had mailed my four published stories to Lonoff. Felix Abravanel was clearly not in the market for a twenty-three-year-old son.

I know the kind of man I am and the kind of writer. I have my own kind of bravery, and please, let's leave it at that.

The only difference between a writer and a crazy person is that a writer gets paid for it.

Well, I think it's extraordinarily fun to write, and I look forward to it every day, but that doesn't mean I think it's easy. There's a difference between the two. It's fun in the way all worthwhile things are fun – there's difficulty attached to it. I think that a writer has to accept a certain amount of frustration. It's inherent in the task, and you have to simply persevere. It's part of the definition of the work.

Saya percaya jika sebuah buku tidak berdampak pada penulisnya, buku tersebut tidak akan berdampak pada orang lain.

We all think we are actors, given our scripts. But really? You're the playwright. You're the composer.

It's just extraordinary to me that the story I write in relative isolation can then connect with so many people, and that the meaning I put into it somehow translates into meaning for a reader. I don't think you can ever expect that.