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Because every book of art, be it a poem or a cupola, is understandably a self-portrait of its author, we won't strain ourselves too hard trying to distinguish between the author's persona and the poem's lyrical hero. As a rule, such distinctions are quite meaningless, if only because a lyrical hero is invariably an author's self-projection.
Joseph BrodskyYear after year, author/historian William Loren Katz continues to mine the lodestone of Black culture, and it is simply amazing how often he manages to find new treasures. Here, with the same insight he brought to Black Indians and his other books, the author traces the courageous role of Black women in settling the West. He deftly shows how these pioneering spirits helped stabilize early communities in Texas, Oklahoma, California and elsewhere.
Herb BoydThe Internet obviously changes things; we've seen that in the music industry above all else. As an author, I'm now having to deal with the fact that it's happening in the publishing industry as well. And publishing is going through a very difficult time. Some view it as positive, some negative, but nobody really knows how to deal with it. If you're an author it looks very challenging because your work can be pirated so easily and there's very little you can do about it.
Misha GlennyResults have nothing at all whatever to do with the private fun of being an author. There lies the answer to the problem which puzzles many wise people. Now it is plain why there are so many of us ... But the public fun of being an author is rather apt to wear thin.
J. E. BuckroseIt is always dishonest for a reviewer to review the author instead of the author's book.
Edward AbbeyThose who believe the Author of Nature to be also the Author of Scripture must expect to find in Scripture the same sorts of difficulties that they find in Nature.
OrigenAgainst the censurers of brevity. - Something said briefly can be the fruit of much long thought: but the reader who is a novice in this field, and has as yet reflected on it not at all, sees in everything said briefly something embryonic, not without censuring the author for having served him up such immature and unripened fare.
Friedrich NietzscheThe books we enjoy as children stay with us forever -- they have a special impact. Paragraph after paragraph and page after page, the author must deliver his or her best work.
Sid FleischmanI have a huge author crush on Stephen King. Have never met him. Would probably embarrass myself. But it would be worth it.
Lisa GardnerWe read privately, mentally listening to the author's voice and translating the writer's thoughts. The book remains static and fixed; the reader journeys through it.
Lynne TrussSometimes the reader will decide something else than the author's intent; this is certainly true of attempts to empirically decipher reality.
John M. FordThe Greeks used to use the same stories, the same mythology, time after time, different authors. There was no premium placed upon an original story, and indeed, Shakespeare likewise. A lot of people wrote plays about great kings. They didn't expect a brand-new story. It was what that new author made of the old story. It is probably the same now. We disguise it by inventing what seem to be new stories, but they're basically the same story anyway.
Arthur MillerIf I want to be the sexy Bipasha Basu, then I'll do a song here or a glam role there. But I want to be part of films that are watched, films that earn money and are new age, with author-backed roles.
Bipasha BasuThe stories on standardized tests don't have one author, therefore they can never authentically be in the first person. Imagine that! Everywhere, there are these tests that have been written by multiple people.
Alejandro ZambraAn author describing the methods of intensive farming, or the excesses of sport hunting, or even the harsher uses of animals in science writes with confidence that most readers will share his sense of concern and indignation. Sounding the call to action-convincing people that change is not only necessary, but actually possible-is more problematic. In protecting animals from cruelty, it is always just one step from the mainstream to the fringe. To condemn the wrong is obvious, to suggest its abolition radical.
Matthew ScullyI've been astonished how often, when I convince a writer to tell a story more straightforwardly and to tell it more simply and directly, it turns out that this author is great and the story is wonderful.
Alice MattisonIn January 1962, when I was the author of one and a half unperformed plays, I attended a student production of 'The Birthday Party' at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol. Just before it began, I realised that Harold Pinter was sitting in front of me.
Tom StoppardIn his laborious efforts to attain mountaintops, where the air is lighter and purer, the climber gains new strength of limb. In the endeavor to over come obstacles of the way, the soul trains itself to conquer difficulties; and the spectacle of the vast horizon, which from the highest crest offers itself on all sides to the eyes, raises his spirit to the Divine Author and Soverign of Nature.
Pope Pius XII really believe that readers are smart and sophisticated enough to realize that the author is not the narrator of his novels.
Bret Easton EllisReaders will share in the environs of the author and her characters, be taken into the hardship of a pitiless place and emerge on the other side โ wiser, warier and weathered like the landscape.
Antonya NelsonThere is no theory of a God, of an author of Nature, of an origin of the Universe, which is not utterly repugnant to my faculties. . .
Harriet MartineauStyle has always been in my mind the author's Self, the creative expression of that Self.
Whit BurnettThe reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.
Jim RohnThe Bible is actually a library of books-some long, some short- written over hundreds of years by many authors. Behind each one, however, was [the] Author: the Spirit of God.
Billy GrahamIf I had an author superpower, I would like to have the ability to stop time for everyone else. I feel like I have to disappear into myself to write books. I go away, into my head, for hours and weeks at a time, and I hate that I miss everything. It's pretty selfish to want to pause other people, isn't it?
Rainbow RowellIt really depends on what the screenplay is asking of you, and what your responsibility is to that character. You have the author's intent to deal with, you have the filmmaker's vision, and then you have your own wants, desires and needs for the character. It's collaborative. But I knew, right off the bat, that there was no way to go into some sort of pink-haired, clown-nosed character with Ronald McDonald shoes.
Johnny DeppThere isnโt any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.
Kurt VonnegutI feel like the Church should have the most amazing entertainment and the best music, because we know the author and the source of music and entertainment, which is our Father.
Danny GokeyReaders have a loyalty that cannot be matched anywhere else in the creative arts, which explains why so many writers who have run out of gas can keep coasting anyway, propelled on to the bestseller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.
Stephen KingI am sure that no traveler seeing things through author spectacles can see them as they are.
Harriet MartineauIt is possible to argue that the really influential book is not that which converts ten millions of casual readers, but rather that which converts the very few who, at any given moment, succeed in seizing power. Marx and Sorel have been influential in the modern world, not so much because they were best-sellers (Sorel in particular was not at all a widely read author), but because among their few readers were two men, called respectively Lenin and Mussolini.
Aldous HuxleyThe kind of sleep that I had during my own film [Certified Copy] screening in Cannes is different. It's not because of the specificity of the film. It was because of my relationship as an author to this film. Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them. Whereas this time, I didn't have that responsibility on my shoulders.
Abbas KiarostamiPeace should be a hallmark of the godly person, first because it is a Godlike trait: God is called the God of peace several times in the New Testament. He took the initiative to establish peace with rebellious men, and He is the author of both personal peace as well as peace among men. Peace should be part of our character also because God has promised us His peace, because He has commanded us to let peace rule in our lives and relationships, and because peace is a fruit of the Spirit and therefore an evidence of His working in our lives.
Jerry BridgesCrushed to earth and rising again is an author's gymnastic. Once he fails to struggle to his feet and grab his pen, he will contemplate a fact he should never permit himself to face: that in all probability books have been written, are being written, will be written, better than anything he has done, is doing, or will do.
Fannie HurstI do tend to look at my books in many ways as conceptual fiction, even to the point where I think the author's photograph is part of the package. And I have gone out of my way to select the photograph to connect to the subject matter of each book.
Bret Easton EllisWell I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they're rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.
Bill GatesWe can be reluctant to recognize how much of our culture was literary, particularly now that so many of the institutional purveyors of literature happily have joined in proclaiming its death. A substantial number of Americans who believe they worship God actually worship three major literary characters: the Yahweh of the J Writer (earliest author of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers), the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark, and Allah of the Koran.
Harold BloomIf 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 KiyosakiI try to read everything that's sent me - play scripts, movie scripts - but I've had to make a rule. If the author hasn't grabbed me by Page 25, the piece goes back with a note of apology.
Hume CronynAn author who enjoys writing may sometimes please other people by accident, but he can never pass on to any one else the zestful thrill he feels himself.
J. E. BuckroseI can only write one novel at a time. The author of the Perry Mason novels, Erle Stanley Gardner, often worked on four novels simultaneously, and produced a million words a year. I'm envious.
James ThayerMost bad books get that way because their authors are engaged in trying to justify themselves. If a vain author is an alcoholic, then the most sympathetically portrayed character in his book will be an alcoholic. This sort of thing is very boring for outsiders.
Stephen VizinczeyFantasy is escapism, but wait... Why is this wrong? What are you escaping from, and where are you escaping to? Is the story opening windows or slamming doors? The British author G.K. Chesterton summarized the role of fantasy very well. He said its purpose was to take the everyday, commonplace world and lift it up and turn it around and show it to us from a different perspective, so that once again we see it for the first time and realize how marvelous it is. Fantasy - the ability to envisage the world in many different ways - is one of the skills that make us human.
Terry PratchettThe true reader reads every work seriously in the sense that he reads it whole-heartedly, makes himself as receptive as he can. But for that very reason he cannot possibly read every work solemly or gravely. For he will read 'in the same spirit that the author writ.'... He will never commit the error of trying to munch whipped cream as if it were venison.
C. S. Lewis