Popular quotes about Authors! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Teachers and librarians can be the most effective advocates for diversifying children's and young adult books. When I speak to publishers, they're going to expect me to say that I would love to see more books by Native American authors and African-American authors and Arab-American authors. But when a teacher or librarian says this to publishers, it can have a profound effect.
Pat MoraPeople often ask authors where their ideas come from, and often authors say they don't know. But I do know about this one. Once upon a time, my wife and I had three small children -- two boys and a girl, just like in the story. And when they were young, we used to tell them a story very like YOU'RE ALL MY FAVORITES.
Sam McBratneyAs 99 per cent of English authors and 100 per cent of American ones [authors] are just such imbeciles, managers and publishers make a practice of asking for every right the author possesses.
George Bernard ShawAuthors also create lovable, friendly characters, then proceed to do terrible things to them, like throw them in unsightly librarian-controlled dungeons. This makes readers feel hurt and worried for the characters. The simple truth is that authors like making people squirm. If this weren't the case, all novels would be filled completely with cute bunnies having birthday parties.
Brandon SandersonGreat editors do not discover nor produce great authors; great authors create and produce great publishers.
John FarrarAll varieties of interference with the market phenomena not only fail to achieve the ends aimed at by their authors and supporters, but bring about a state of affairs which - from the point of view of their authors and advocates valuations - is less desirable than the previous state of affairs which they were designed to alter.
Ludwig von MisesLiving authors, therefore, are usually, bad companions. If they have not gained character, they seek to do so by methods often ridiculous, always disgusting; and if they have established a character, they are silent for fear of losing by their tongue what they have acquired by their pen--for many authors converse much more foolishly than Goldsmith, who have never written half so well.
Charles Caleb ColtonThe makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit.
PlatoThis book is unique. I know of no other which so artfully tackles two of the greatest mysteries of modern science, quantum mechanics, and consciousness. It has long been suspected that these mysteries are somehow related: the authorsโ treatment of this thorny and controversial issue is honest, wide-ranging, and immensely readable. The book contains some of the clearest expositions I have ever seen of the strange and paradoxical nature of the quantum world. Quantum Enigma is a pleasure to read, and I am sure it is destined to become a classic.
George GreensteinMany books owe their success to the good memories of their authors and the bad memories of their readers.
Charles Caleb ColtonDon't read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants... or (again) parties.
Nassim Nicholas TalebThere are some works which the authors must consign unpublished to posterity, however uncertain be the event, however hopeless be the trust. He that writes the history of his own times, if he adhere steadily to truth, will write that which his own times will not easily endure. He must be content to reposite his book till all private passions shall cease, and love and hatred give way to curiosity.
Samuel JohnsonDifferent authors write different ways, have different relationships with their audiences, and those are all legitimate.
John GreenOne of my favorite modern American authors is Denis Johnson. I'm deeply inspired by all of his work - I rip him off constantly.
Conor OberstI do that a lot of authors still do not do is allow people to write directly to me. I get about 50 fan letters a day, and I answer every single one of them myself. It takes a lot of time and sometimes it's a pain in the neck and I answer the same questions over and over. But the truth is these people come to my readings clutching these letters saying, "You wrote me back. I can't believe you wrote me back", and I think it really means a lot for them to know that the author values them just as much as they value the author.
Steven TylerIt is a sad paradox that when male authors impersonate women ... they are said to be dealing with 'cosmic, major concerns' - but when we impersonate ourselves we are said to be writing 'women's fiction' or 'women's poetry.
Erica JongThat the system of morals propounded in the New Testament contained no maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and that some of the most beautiful passages in the apostolic writings are quotations from Pagan authors, is well known to every scholar... To assert that Christianity communicated to man moral truths previously unknown, argues on the part of the asserted either gross ignorance or wilful fraud.
Henry Thomas BuckleAuthors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowTo be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries
Richard DawkinsEdited by mostly unknown scholars in A.D. 367, compiled from documents written 30 to 110 years after the Christ event by no one who was present at the events, and composed for the most part by unknown authors in the Greek language that Jesus never spoke, it is held up as the only true record of the Christ story.
Leonard ShlainI can't imagine why everybody is always so keen for authors to talk about writing. I should have thought it was an author's business to write, not talk.
Agatha ChristieWe are the authors of our own fate-we write it each day with every one of our actions.
Fรฉlix J. PalmaBooks choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.
Salman RushdieI've noticed that most authors who are pastors or speakers write books whose message is derived from a sermon series they did at their church. I guess my process is similar except that instead of a sermon, the genesis of the idea is found in the form of a three-minute song. And many of my songs have been inspired by the true stories and testimonies of people who've written to me from all over the world.
Matthew WestNot surprisingly, the chief way self-published authors get the word out about their books is through the Internet.
Ruth GlickI believe that everything is political, and as such it should concern all of us. Authors who claim they don't deal with politics in their work are being naive, because even that is a political stance.
Elena PoniatowskaAuthors of published papers and editors of scientific journals can, unfortunately, be slow to come to terms with criticism, and it's good that we can use blogs to express specific criticisms of published articles and to use social media to disseminate these criticisms.
Andrew GelmanI decided to work on hand animate because the animators work as authors in every little scene and it brings real soul for characters.
Luiz BolognesiAn avid reader, I never missed a book by Judy Blume or Agatha Christie. They both remain two of my favorite authors. If I could have combined these ladies into one person, that's who I would have wanted to be when I grew up.
Kambri CrewsMany first-time authors are not concerned about the advance or royalties, they want the notoriety. They get smarter on their second book and look for the money.
Dan PoynterI have dear friends in South Carolina, folks who made my life there wonderful and meaningful. Two of my children were born there. South Carolina's governor awarded me the highest award for the arts in the state. I was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors. I have lived and worked among the folks in Sumter, South Carolina, for so many years. South Carolina has been home, and to be honest, it was easier for me to define myself as a South Carolinian than even as an American.
Kwame DawesI want to offer a word of encouragement to authors: You have to feel called to the message of your book enough that you want people to get that message. When you get to that place, your passion goes through the roof, and then the other stuff happens.
Jud WilhiteA witty and informative professor posits that more authors do not choose titles borrowed from Shakespeare's sonnets and plays for the reason some people claim not to have partners: "All the good ones are taken."
Thomas C FosterI have heard that nothing gives an Author so great Pleasure, as to find his works respectfully quoted by other learned authors.
Benjamin FranklinNothing is more painful to me than the disdain with which people treat second-rate authors, as if there were room only for the first-raters.
Charles Augustin Sainte-BeuveThere are some writers who also enjoy being authors, and are good at it as well. There is nothing performative about writing, but there is about being a writer.
Hanya YanagiharaI don't think that children, if left to themselves, feel that there is an author behind a book, a somebody who wrote it. Grown-ups have fostered this quotient of identity, particularly teachers. Write a letter to your favorite author and so forth. When I was a child I never realized that there were authors behind books. Books were there as living things, with identities of their own.
P. L. TraversThere are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography.
Henry David ThoreauYour book may be a masterpiece but do not suggest that to the publisher because many of the most hopeless manuscripts that have come his way have probably been so described by their authors.
Stanley UnwinIt's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her, but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.
R. L. StineAlso, I've spent an entire week without reading any books or talking about them too loudly. I'm learning to work my apparat's screen, the colourful pulsating mosaic of it, the fact that it knows every last stinking detail about the world, whereas my books only know the minds of their authors.
Gary ShteyngartThose authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct.
Samuel JohnsonWe may observe in humorous authors that the faults they chiefly ridicule have often a likeness in themselves. Cervantes had much of the knight-errant in him; Sir George Etherege was unconsciously the Fopling Flutter of his own satire; Goldsmith was the same hero to chambermaids, and coward to ladies that he has immortalized in his charming comedy; and the antiquarian frivolities of Jonathan Oldbuck had their resemblance in Jonathan Oldbuck's creator.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton