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I believe that in a good collaboration, the authors bring their strengths to the story; one author's strength cancels the other author's weakness, and back and forth it goes.
Jack DannDo not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.
Roddy DoyleI think overtly political novels - those that never transcend or contest their author's conscious intentions and prejudices - are problematic. This is not just true of the innumerable unread books in the socialist realist tradition, but also of novels that carry the burden of conservative ideologies, like Guerrillas, Naipaul's worst book, where the author's disgust for a certain kind of black activist and white liberal is overpowering.
Pankaj MishraUnfortunately what is little recognized is that the most worthwhile scientific books are those in which the author clearly indicates what he does not know; for an author most hurts his readers by concealing difficulties.
Evariste GaloisWARNING: The following is a transcript of a digital recording. In certain places, the audio quality was poor, so some words and phrases represent the author's best guesses. Where possible, illustrations of important symbols mentioned in the recording have been added. Background noises such as scuffling, hitting, and cursing by the two speakers have not been transcribed The author makes no claims for the authenticity of the recording. It seems impossible that the two young narrators are telling the truth, but you, the reader, must decide for yourself.
Rick RiordanI 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. TraversSomeone from the Internet Writing Workshop sent me a link to the Gender Genie, where you paste in a section of text and it uses an algorithm to detect whether the author is male or female. Or, if you're an author, you can tell whether you're really nailing your opposite-sex characters. I mean, nailing their dialog.
Max BarryA creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheGOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.
Ambrose BierceIt has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week.
Susanna ClarkeI think I'm way too much of a control freak to co-author anything with anyone. I have a hard enough time writing with myself! I admire people that can do it, but it's not for me.
Sarah DessenAs a writer, author, creator of something the fact that people are still interested, is fantastic.
Phil CollinsI have a huge author crush on Stephen King. Have never met him. Would probably embarrass myself. But it would be worth it.
Lisa GardnerIf at times I have thought myself unfortunate, it is because of a confusion, an error. I have mistaken myself for someone else... Who am I really? I am the author of The World as Will and Representation, I am the one who has given an answer to the mystery of Being that will occupy the thinkers of future centuries. That is what I am, and who can dispute it in the years of life that still remain for me?
Arthur SchopenhauerI think we have got to start again and go right back to first principles. The argument I shall advance, surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the evolution of modern man, we must begin by throwing out the gene as the sole basis of our ideas on evolution. If there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? ... Is he manuvering to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings?
Richard DawkinsThe problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one's own style and creatively adjust this to one's author.
Paul GoodmanFundamentally a good author has his or her own sense of style. There is a natural, deep voice, and that voice is present from the first draft of a manuscript. When he or she elaborates on the initial manuscript, it continues to strengthen and simplify that natural, deep voice.
Kenzaburo OeI was obsessed with fairytales, and I was a very, very inquisitive kid, and I would ask my mom all kinds of questions. It all kind of formed a story in my head, and I really wanted to be a published author when I was 10, but I had a hard time writing a novel when I was 10. So I decided to wait until I was little bit older and then get it done.
Chris ColferThe only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
Samuel ButlerAn 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 think I have done well, if I have acquired a new word from a good author; and my business with him is to find my own, though itwere only to melt him down into an epithet or an image for daily use.
Ralph Waldo EmersonAll 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 WhedonFantasy works inwards upon its author, blurring the boundary between the visioned and the actual, and associating itself ever moreclosely with the Ego, so that the child who has fantasied himself a murderer ends by becoming a Loeb or a Leopold. The creative Imagination works outwards, steadily increasing the gap between the visioned and the actual, till this becomes the great gulf fixed between art and nature. Few writers of crime-stories become murderers--if any do, it is not the result of identifying themselves with their murderous heroes.
Dorothy L. SayersHe who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
Thomas PaineAnita Johnston, Ph.D., author of Eating in the Light of the Moon, taught me to look in the mirror with curiosity rather than fear. So I may look at my reflection and think, 'That's interesting. I wonder why my body seems bigger today than it did yesterday. Maybe it's water weight. Maybe it's my outfit. Or maybe my eyes are just playing tricks on me.' I know it's not possible for me to gain a noticeable amount of weight overnight, so I will go no further than that. I move on with my day without skipping a beat-and definitely without missing a meal.
Jenni SchaeferI think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.
Joseph AddisonIt has been said by a distinguished philosopher that England is "usually the last to enter into the general movement of the European mind." The author of the remark probably meant to assert that a man or a system may have become famous on the continent, while we are almost ignorant of the name of the man and the claims of his system. Perhaps, however, a wider range might be given to the assertion. An exploded theory or a disadvantageous practice, like a rebel or a patriot in distress, seeks refuge on our shores to spend its last days in comfort if not in splendour.
Isaac TodhunterIโve always believed that as an author, I do 50% of the work of storytelling, and the reader does the other 50%. Thereโs no way I can control the story you tell yourself from my book. Your own experiences, preferences, prejudices, mood at the moment, current events in your life, needs and wants influence how you read my every word.
Shannon HaleMy theory on literature is an author who does not indulge in trashiness-writes about people you could introduce into your own home...he did not care to read a book or go to a play about people he would not care to meet at his own dinner table. I believe we should live by certain standards and ideals.
Booth TarkingtonFairfield Porter who has been my model for art writing all along, said that if the most interesting thing about a work of art is its content, it's probably a failure. I think it's true that if you find yourself thinking about the meaning in an author's message, it's probably not very interesting as art. Obviously, this is a tough concept, because if you withdraw intention.
David SalleThe awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author's that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.
Charles Caleb ColtonI speak as an unregenerate reader, one who still believes that language and not technology is the true evolutionary miracle. I have not yet given up on the idea that the experience of literature offers a kind of wisdom that cannot be discovered elsewhere; that there is profundity in the verbal encounter itself, never mind what further profundities that author has to offer; and that for a host of reasons the bound book is the ideal vehicle for the written word.
Sven BirkertsMilla Jovovich introduced me to [anthropologist and author of the Don Juan series of books involving shamanic peyote rituals] Carlos Castaneda because I was all into the hallucinogens for a minute.
Michelle RodriguezThere is no less invention in aptly applying a thought found in a book, than in being the first author of the thought.
Robert BoyleThen I found another one, grandpa's poem. It turned out it had been written by Emily Brontรซ and it wasn't my grandfather's poem at all, although my response to it, I think, was pretty much the same, I just had the author wrong.
Edward HirschA story of remarkable simplicity and charm. A young swimmer invites us into sea off the coast of California where through her eyes we see an entire realm of creatures we have never known so intimately before. Truly for people of all ages, Lynne Cox's adventure with the baby whale, Grayson, becomes a parable and an experience, thanks not only to the author's great and generous spirit, but through her immense gift for describing nature.
Anne RiceI hope to be remembered as an author who defined and exemplified excellence in crafting the modern love story.
Nicholas SparksSmile, breathe and go slowly." - Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen monk, author and peace activist.
Nhat HanhAnthony Heilbut has been a guide and a mentor to me. I know of no one who has the love and depth of knowledge of this extraordinary author.
Paul SimonI no longer know the author of this book, for simply stopping long enough and writing it down was where I changed from a boy with his eyes squeezed shut to a man with his eyes wide open so that the sunlight might reach my heart despite all that darkness.
Ryan AdamsAn author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.
Tony HillermanIt 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 PaulBecoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.
Lev Grossman