All Quotes By Tag: Books

“If you’re a writer, your first duty, a duty you owe to yourself and your readers, and to your writing itself, is to become wonderful. To become the best writer you can possibly be.”

“One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?”

“Remember the good hours when the words are flowing well. And never mind the bad hours; there is no life without them.”

“I doubt I was much of a storyteller, but I would have put that smile in my book. On page 104, right next to the image of the Ward. I would have written it on my heart. I would have proofread it a thousand times under a thousand moons until a thousand tears thoroughly rationalized what it meant to me. Each time for when I’d met the darkness, and then succumbed. The smile read “you can’t break me’”—bold and in italics.”

“The difference between a novelist and someone who tinkers around with writing is this: novelists finish their books.”

“Any given censor is a fool. The very fact that he is a censor indicates that.”

“That’s why I’ve just gone on … collecting this particular kind of stuff – what you might call riff-raff. There’s not a book here, Lawford, that hasn’t at least a glimmer of the real thing in it – just Life, seen through a living eye, and felt. As for literature, and style, and all that gallimaufry, don’t fear for them if your author has the ghost of a hint of genius in his making.”

“I’m the first to admit that I don’t write right. Now, relax and enjoy the show! The sideshow, that is.”

“I’m not trying to please anyone. I’m just trying to write a damn book.”

“Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say.Of course those who write short books have even less to say.”

“But once an original book has been written-and no more than one or two appear in a century-men of letters imitate it, in other words, they copy it so that hundreds of thousands of books are published on exactly the same theme, with slightly different titles and modified phraseology. This should be able to be achieved by apes, who are essentially imitators, provided, of course, that they are able to make use of language.”

“If any accolades come in the writing of this story, all praise will be His, all Glory will rightly go to Him. If He will allow me to share some part in this, I am truly humbled.”

“Every article and review and book that I have ever published has constituted an appeal to the person or persons to whom I should have talked before I dared to write it. I never launch any little essay without the hope—and the fear, because the encounter may also be embarrassing—that I shall draw a letter that begins, ‘Dear Mr. Hitchens, it seems that you are unaware that…’ It is in this sense that authorship is collaborative with ‘the reader.’ And there’s no help for it: you only find out what you ought to have known by pretending to know at least some of it already.It doesn’t matter how obscure or arcane or esoteric your place of publication may be: some sweet law ensures that the person who should be scrutinizing your work eventually does do so.”

“A book unwritten is a delightful universe of infinite possibilities. Set down one word, however, and it immediately becomes earthbound. Set down one sentence and it’s halfway to being just like every other bloody book that’s ever been written.”

“Be passionate about what you write, believe in your ability to convey timeless ideas, and let no one tell you what what you’re capable of.”