Popular quotes about Authors! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.
Richard StallmanTeachers 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 MoraI like to read biographies of authors that I love, like Richard Yates. I also like to see what non-fiction authors are out there. My bible is Something Happened. It's one of the greatest books I've ever read. But if I don't read a Dostoevsky soon I'm going to kill myself.
Richard LewisWe rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our "white mythology." Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.
Ihab HassanIn the history of literature there are many great enduring works which were not published in the lifetimes of the authors. If the authors had not achieved self-affirmation while writing, how could they have continued to write?
Gao XingjianI have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors
Curtis SittenfeldThere are many readers of the book, who don't know anything about the authors and the artists. There is more than one author. It doesn't matter, if you can't make the reader dive into the story and surround him with that environment and those characters. That's an experience that lasts longer than figuring out who did what. I think that's what makes our working relationship better, it helps us to make a book that feels unique and not like different voices.
Gabriel BaAuthors frequently say things they are unaware of; only after they have gotten the reactions of their readers do they discover what they have said
Umberto EcoThis 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 GreensteinI think the diversity of authors and readers is expanding, which is wonderful, because it means the type of story being told is also expanding.
Sarah ZettelWhen I get into the moment of actually feeling like I want to write, to finish something, I do what I've always read authors do, and park myself at a desk and bang things out for three hours. And if I have to throw it all away, I throw it all away.
Ted LeoNow that I understand how publishing schedules work, I can understand why many authors have the sophomore slump. A year is a long time to wait for a sequel, but it's a short, short time to WRITE a sequel.
Patrick RothfussThe Bible became the book of books, but it is not one document. It is a mystical library of interwoven texts by unknown authors who wrote and edited at different times with widely divergent aims. This sacred work of so many epochs and so many hands contains some facts of provable history, some stories of unprovable myth, some poetry of soaring beauty, and many passages of unintelligible, perhaps coded, perhaps simply mistranslated, mystery. Most of it is written not to recount events but to promote a higher truthโthe relationship of one people and their God.
Simon Sebag-MontefioreThe biblical authors wrote of God's sovereignty over His world, and of man's experiences within that world, using such modes of speech about the natural order and human experience as were current in their days, and in a language that was common to themselves and their contemporaries. This is saying no more than that they wrote to be understood. Their picture of the world and things in it is not put forward as normative for later science, andy more than their use of Hebrew and Greek is put forward as a perfect model for composition in these languages.
J. I. PackerSomebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.
Albert EinsteinSome authors have what amounts to a metaphysical approach. They admit to inspiration. Sudden and unaccountable urgencies to writecatapult them out of sleep and bed. For myself, I have never awakened to jot down an idea that was acceptable the following morning.
Fannie HurstMy own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
Anton ChekhovThere is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.
Christian Nestell Bovee[Confiscating a book and punishing its author] is a sign that one does not have a good case, or at least doesn't trust it enough to defend it with reasons and refute the objections. Some people even go so far as to consider prohibited or confiscated books to be the best ones of all, for the prohibition indicates that their authors wrote what they really thought rather than what they were supposed to think . . .
Laszlo RadvanyiOthers have questions about how it is that God and human beings can both be speaking through the one document such that you can see and read the personalities of the human authors with their individual vocabularies and literary genres, and yet this is nevertheless the word of God. How can that be? This is quite a contrast with Islam, for example, which holds that the Koran has been dictated in Arabic by God and as a result Mohammed is nothing more than the one who memorizes the word so as to pass it on. There is nothing of human contribution.
D. A. CarsonI always thought it would be really, really cool to play Edgar Allan Poe, because when I was a kid, he was one of the authors who really blew my mind open to all sorts of weird dark and twisted places.
Ezra MillerI 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 PoniatowskaBooksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to.
Alain de BottonThe Sentence has no end. Sometimes I think it had no beginning. Now I salute its authors, which means all of us. You have made a wild, precious, awful, delicious, lovable, tragic, vulgar, fearsome, divine thing.
Douglas DavisThe thing that helps me do a good job is that I don't feel the need to explain everything about the world to my reader. I'm not writing a history text on the Four Corners. I'm telling a story that's set there. The setting belongs in the background for the most part, and it's easy for fantasy authors to forget that. That's one of the unfortunate parts of Tolkien's legacy, in my opinion. Read the first hundred pages of the Fellowship of the Ring and you start to get pissed, "Shut up about the Shire's museums! Isn't the world supposed to be in peril or something?"
Patrick RothfussFor almost a quarter of a century, Teen Ink has been encouraging young people to write - and then has published those pieces. These heartfelt essays and poems explore the issues faced by teenagers today. I applaud their efforts because they not only help young people deal with their own lives but also encourage the budding authors of the next generation.
Anita SilveyI'm such a fangirl when it comes to other writers. I read 250 books a year, and I'm always talking up books by other authors.
Jen LancasterWe are authors, all of us, concerned with beginning, with making, with sources and substance.
Diane WakoskiI think a lot of awesome stuff is coming out with smaller presses. Small presses don't have to have huge board meetings to talk about how to market their books or what to publish - they can take more chances. They can help new authors grow in a healthier, often more artistic way.
Kevin SampsellI'm afraid that surprise, shock, and regret is the fate of authors when they finally see themselves on the page.
Julia ChildGreat authors, when they write about causes, adduce not only those they think are true but also those they do not believe in, provided they have some originality and beauty. They speak truly and usefully enough if they speak ingeniously.
Michel de MontaigneI 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-BeuveBurmese authors and artists can play the role that artists everywhere play. They help to mold the outlook of a society - not the whole outlook and they are not the only ones to mold the outlook of society, but they have an important role to play there. And I think if they take up this role seriously and link it to the kind of changes were wish to bring about in our country they could be a tremendous help.
Aung San Suu KyiTo change man, the audience by which he judges himself must be changed. A man is defined by his audience: by the people, institutions, authors, magazines, movie heroes, philosophers by whom he pictures himself being cheered and booed. Major psychological disturbances, 'identity crises', are caused when an individual begins to change the audience for whom he plays: from parents to peers; from peers to the works of Albert Camus; from the Bible to Hugh Hefner.
Luke RhinehartIn comparing various authors with one another, I have discovered that some of the gravest and latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making acknowledgment.
Pliny the ElderOne of the least impressive liberties is the liberty to starve. This particular liberty is freely accorded to authors.
Arnold Goodman, Baron GoodmanAside from John Grisham, there isn't really anybody besides Tess that I've truly gotten into. But, I do like them. When I have more time to read, I will absolutely look for some more authors. It's just about finding a world and a character that you're intrigued by.
Sasha AlexanderIf it were a rainy day, a drunken vigil, a fit of the spleen, a course of physic, sleepy Sunday, an ill run at dice, a long tailor's bill, a beggar's purse, a factious head, a hot sun, costive diet, want of books, and a just contempt for learning - but for these. . .the number of authors and of writing would dwindle away to a degree most woeful to behold.
Jonathan SwiftQuit smoking in the hope of growing old. It takes a long time to write. People go to books for wisdom and older authors tend to have more of it.
Barbara KingsolverEditors and their authors seldom form deep friendships for the same reason that psychiatrists and their patients keep their distance: The relationship requires candor that mixes poorly with intimacy.
Jason EpsteinAbstracts, abridgments, summaries, etc., have the same use with burning-glasses,--to collect the diffused light rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination.
Jonathan SwiftGreat old books of the great old authors are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get his own belief.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeI love to talk with children. I try to visit schools but it's hard for me to travel when I'm trying to write. Some authors are able to do both.
Judy Blume