All Quotes By Tag: Books

“I had written all I was going to write, if the truth had been known, and there is nothing wrong with that. If more writers knew that, the world would be saved a lot of bad books, and more people–men and women alike–could go on to happier, more productive lives.”

“It’s my contention that each book creates its own structure and its own length. I’ve written three or four slim books. It may be that the next novel is a big one, but I don’t know.”

“Be thankful for the people who have stood by you and cheered you on, but don’t forget to be thankful for the ones that said it could not be done. Writing a book is no small task and even the skeptics can help you get where you want to be!”

“I think the reason why I don’t read so much, is because as I have observed, whole books all boil down to a drop of essence. You can read a book full of ten thousand words and at the end, sum it up in one sentence; I am more for the one sentence. I am more for the essence. It’s like how you need a truckload of roses to extract one drop of rose oil; I don’t want to bother with the truckload of roses because I would rather walk away with the drop of rose oil. So in my mind, I have written two hundred books. Why? Because I have with me two hundred vials with one drop of essence in each!”

“Now may this little Book a blessing beTo those that love this little Book, and me:And may its Buyer have no cause to say,His money is but lost, or thrown away.”

“To care about words, to have a stake in what is written, to believe in the power of books – this overwhelms the rest, and beside it one’s life becomes very small.”

“The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large.”

“If there is no mystery, for the artist, to solve inside of his art, then there’s no point in it. . . . for me, every act of art is the act of solving a mystery.”

“Accept criticism. If you do not offer your work for criticism and accept that criticism, meaning give it serious thought and attention, then you will never improve.”

“Read a lot. But read as a writer, to see how other writers are doing it. And make your knowledge of literature in English as deep and broad as you can. In workshops, writers are often told to read what is being written now, but if that is all you read, you are limiting yourself. You need to get a good overall sense of English literary history, so you can write out of that knowledge.”

“Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography,but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility.”

“Writing sometimes feels frivolous and sometimes sacred, but memory is one of my strongest muses. I serve her with my words. So long as people read, those we love survive however evanescently. As do we writers, saying with our life’s work, Remember. Remember us. Remember me.”

“[A] finished tale may give a man immortality in the light and literary sense; but an unfinished tale suggests another immortality, more essential and more strange.”

“Writers are not here to conform. We are here to challenge. We’re not here to be comfortable—we’re here, really, to shake things up. That’s our job.”

“I wanted to write the most beautiful poem but that is impossible; the world has written its own.”