Quotes About Authorship

Self-publishing is fine. But in a world of self-publishing, where everything is about what you get on the back end, there's a serious disincentive from embarking on really important, vital projects.

I write. This is what I do. My job is to sit down with my vocabulary, select words, and decide what order they should be placed in an attempt to keep someone's attention and perhaps provide them with a laugh or two along the way.

If you see a credit with just my name on it, that means I write absolutely everything: rhythm guitar parts, guitar melodies, vocal melodies... absolutely everything, really.

We used to get published a lot. And there was this vodka advertisement... it embarrassed me a lot afterwards.

Siren voices tell me, 'You don't have to keep going on.' And then you think, 'I'm a writer. What do I do? Sit there watching my wife clean up?' I don't know. I like being a writer.

I'm not one of those authors who claims to hear voices in my head or 'let the characters speak through me,' whatever that might mean.

You write differently in each book. It may appear to be similar to readers, but you're a different writer in each book because you haven't approached that subject before. And every subject brings out a different prose strain in you. Fundamentally, yes, you're contained as one writer. But you have various voices. Like a good actor.

The only successful way to write, and the only one I have found, is to be the character. Give up on trying to control them. Writers always talk about hearing voices. That's what they mean.

I, for myself, have wanted to get more into producing because I want to be a part of the conversation and be one of the voices in the story we're trying to tell.

Individual writers can certainly make a difference, but they are working within a system, an institution, that still holds tremendous power over whose voices are heard and whose voices are rewarded.

If you want to be a writer, you have to learn to write in other people's voices until you get the chance to write in your own.

Many people know that Shakespeare's dramatic 'canon' was established in 1623 by the publication of the so-called First Folio. That hefty volume contained thirty-six plays.

Also, if nothing else, writing this book has really changed the way I experience bookstores. I have a whole different appreciation for the amount of work packed into even the slimmest volume on the shelves.

If I had a story idea that I felt would work best in three volumes I might write a trilogy eventually. I'd very likely write it all at once, though, so I could work on it as a whole and not broken into individual volumes. I don't always write in order, so composing multi-book stories could get complicated.

Lars von Trier, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog: They all write, which is much better because it's their baby, and they know what they want.

I always wrote. My parents are writers. It just seemed like something people did.

I took my writing seriously, and it seemed to pay off.

I very seldom read back into what I've written.

I actually really wish I had written 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying' as an unreliably narrated novel that is also a self-help book.

I do want to say the process of writing a novel is riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing.

I am rich because I sell a lot of books, but it's not my drive.

Selling a book or story has never become absolutely automatic for me.

For many writers, selling a book is the ultimate dream.

As an author, I love to know my book sells really well.