Popular quotes about Author! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 12
When a character is born, he acquires at once such an independence, even of his own author, that he can be imagined by everybody even in many other situations where the author never dreamed of placing him; and so he acquires for himself a meaning which the author never thought of giving him.
Luigi PirandelloTimes have changed since a certain author was executed for murdering his publisher. They say that when the author was on the scaffold he said good-bye to the minister and to the reporters, and then he saw some publishers sitting in the front row below, and to them he did not say good-bye. He said instead, "I'll see you again."
James M. BarrieThe author creates a book and the people accept or not accept it. The creator of a book is an author and the creator of it`s fate are people.
Victor HugoI wanted to be an author as far back as I can remember, mixed with occasional bouts of wanting to be a werewolf when I grew up. But mostly, when I daydreamed, it was about being an author.
Neil GaimanChrist is the Master; the Scriptures are only the servant. The true way to test all the Books is to see whether they work the will of Christ or not. No Book which does not preach Christ can be apostolic, though Peter or Paul were its author. And no Book which does preach Christ can fail to be apostolic, although Judas, Ananias, Pilate, or Herod were its author.
Martin LutherThe work of one author or artist may stimulate another author or artist to push the edge, to take the risk, to go where the field hasn't gone before. The result -very exciting children's literature and art ... exciting both for the professional and for the intended audience, the children.
Karen HesseSome reviews give pain. This is regrettable, but no author has the right to whine. He was not obliged to be an author. He invited publicity, and he must take the publicity that comes along.
E. M. ForsterIf someone writes a great story, people praise the author, not the pen. People don't say, 'Oh what an incredible pen...where can I get a pen like this so I can write great stories?' Well, I am just a pen in the hands of the Lord. He is the author. All praise should go to him.
Keith GreenMore than anything I am a novelist. But for me, an author's job is not only to create linguistically accomplished works. As an author I also want to stimulate discussion.
Orhan PamukIt is always dishonest for a reviewer to review the author instead of the author's book.
Edward AbbeyEvery author has different ways of writing and what works for one author does not necessarily work for another.
Robert MunschUnder true peer-review...a panel of reviewers must accept a study before it can be published in a scientific journal. If the reviewers have objections the author must answer them or change the article to take reviewers' objections into account. Under the IPCC review process, the authors are at liberty to ignore criticisms.
Richard LindzenThe reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.
Walter BagehotGenerally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheBecause I'm the author of my screenplays I know what I'm looking for. It's true that I can be stubborn in demanding that I get what I want, but it's also a question of working with patience and love.
Michael HanekeIf modesty and candor are necessary to an author in his judgment of his own works, no less are they in his reader.
Sarah FieldingSATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness.
Ambrose BierceThe Bible is one story that unfolds in one book, by one author, about one subject. A story that moves from promise to fulfillment.
Alistair BeggWhen a French book becomes an international hit it is because of the author and not because of the language. The same goes for movies.
Jean-Jacques AnnaudAll worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you.
Joss WhedonAs a writer, its important to stay true to your story without giving a hoot about publishers, critics and readers. You should do your karma as an author the way you want to, and rest is up to God.
Amish TripathiThat part of a work of one author found in another is not of itself piracy, or sufficient to support an action; a man may adopt part of the work of another; he may so make use of anotherโs labors for the promotion of science and the benefit of the public.
Edward Law, 1st Earl of EllenboroughYou know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
W. Somerset MaughamThe selection of a subject is to the author what choice of position is to the general,--once skilfully determined, the battle is already half won. Of a few writers it may be said that they are popular in despite of their subjects--but of a great many more it may be observed that they are popular because of them.
Christian Nestell BoveeCertainly the most diverse, if minor, pastime of literary life is the game of Find the Author.
Arthur MillerI often encountered books by academics and others who had not actually done what they had written about. They tend to create artificial simplicity; their prose doesn't have the vigor of "lived words." On the other hand, many practitioners lack the context or introspection to make their experiences and understandings transferable - and, in our time, many don't actually write the books they "author." My ideal is to unify theory and practice.
James M StrockA successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.
Samuel JohnsonI don't think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films.
Paul AusterI am sure that no traveler seeing things through author spectacles can see them as they are.
Harriet MartineauEvery reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheIt has been jestingly said that the works of John Paul Richter are almost unintelligible to any but the Germans, and even to some of them. A worthy German, just before Richter's death, edited a complete edition of his works, in which one particular passage fairly puzzled him. Determined to have it explained at the source, he went to John Paul himself. The author's reply was very characteristic: "My good friend, when I wrote that passage, God and I knew what it meant; it is possible that God knows it still; but as for me, I have totally forgotten."
Jean PaulI am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.
Anne BronteThe two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.
William Makepeace ThackerayThere is no word or action but may be taken with two hands,--either with the right hand of charitable construction, or the sinister interpretation of malice and suspicion; and all things do succeed as they are taken. To construe an evil, action well is but a pleasing and profitable deceit to myself; but to misconstrue a good thing is a treble wrong,--to myself, the action, and the author.
Joseph HallHere's the thing: Authors live or die by recommendations. [That's one of the reason I review so many books on Goodreads.] Giving books you love good reviews is one of the nicest things you can do for an author. What's more it's good for the entire community.
Patrick RothfussIf you had seen me back in high school, there's no way you would have ever said I would become an author or teacher because I was a horrible student.
Robert KiyosakiWriters are egotists. All artists are. They canโt be altruists and get their work done. And writers love to whine about the Solitude of the Authorโs Life, and lock themselves into cork-lined rooms or droop around in bars in order to whine better. But although most writing is done in solitude, I believe that it is done, like all the arts, for an audience. That is to say, with an audience. All the arts are performance arts, only some of them are sneakier about it than others.
Ursula K. Le GuinThe productions of a great genius, with many lapses and inadvertences, are infinitely preferable to the works of an inferior kind of author which are scrupulously exact, and conformable to all the rules of correct writing.
Joseph AddisonThis fear is one of the horrors of an author's life. Where does work come from? What chance, what small episode will start the chain of creation? I once wrote a story about a writer who could not write anymore, and my friend Tennessee Williams said, 'How could you dare write that story, it's the most frightening work I have ever read.' I was pretty well sunk while I was writing it.
Carson McCullersNo matter how successful, beloved, influential her work was, when a woman author dies, nine times out of ten, she gets dropped from the lists, the courses, the anthologies, while the men get kept. ... If she had the nerve to have children, her chances of getting dropped are higher still. ... So if you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that.
Ursula K. Le GuinEvery once in a while a messy character who manifests a REAL body emerges, for instance, Lisbeth Salander - and certainly commercial genre fiction is full of examples of real bodied sexual encounters or violence encounters - but for the most part, and particularly if you are a woman or minority author, your characters' bodies have to fit a kind of norm inside a narrow set of narrative pre-ordained and sanctioned scripts.
Lidia YuknavitchAll art is unstable. Its meaning is not necessarily that implied by the author. There is no authoritative voice. There are only multiple readings.
David BowieThe sensible author writes for no other posterity than his own--that is, for his age--so as to be able even then to take pleasurein himself.
Friedrich NietzscheFaith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation upon which sincere and meaningful repentance must be built. If we truly seek to put away sin, we must first look to Him who is the Author of our salvation.
Ezra Taft BensonSome people probably think of the Resurrection as a desperate last moment expedient to save the Hero from a situation which had got out of the Author's control.
C. S. LewisIn making Achilles and Patroclus lovers, I wasn't trying to speak for all gay men, just as when I write straight characters, I don't claim to speak for all straight people. My job as an author is to give voice to these very particular characters - these two men, in this time, and in this place
Madeline Miller