Quotes on Writer

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.

Author: Dean Acheson

Every writer, to some extent, writes about himself.

Author: Dario Argento

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

Author: Margaret Atwood

I can't tell you any more than any other writer can tell you why they write, and I don't know what my influences are.

Author: Jean Auel

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.

Author: Richard Bach

The best thing about writing programs is that it rationalized the apprenticeship of a writer.

Author: Russell Banks

Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.

Author: Ann Beattie

It's often been said that I'm an extremely depressing, cynical writer. I've never known what to make of that.

Author: Ann Beattie

That is a secondary teacher conception - the writer as an observer.

Author: Peter Bichsel

I wanted to write a novel. At 12 I knew, I am a writer. I said it to nobody.

Author: Peter Bichsel

I'm an escapist kind of writer.

Author: Maeve Binchy

A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender.

Author: Jim Bishop

I don't call myself a writer.

Author: Bruce Boxleitner

Miller is not really a writer but a non-stop talker to whom someone has given a typewriter.

Author: Gerald Brenan

I certainly don't think I would have been asked to pose for Rage if I wasn't a known writer.

Author: Poppy Brite

I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker.

Author: Gwendolyn Brooks

I am a comic writer, which means I get to slay the dragons, and shoot the bull.

Author: Rita Brown

I wanted to be a director and producer and writer, but in the early '40's the union wouldn't let you get through the gates. You couldn't get on a crew, or even learn to direct.

Author: Larry Buchanan

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.

Author: Jimmy Buffett

There is no mistaking the dismay on the face of a writer who has just heard that his brain child is a deformed idiot.

Author: L. Camp

I always wanted to be a writer.

Author: Jung Chang

A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer.

Author: Anton Chekhov

I did a series called Ned and Stacey for two years for Fox back in the 90s. I was writer on it as well as a producer, and it was very important to me that there were no contemporary references.

Author: Thomas Church

I just have a thing for writers. Maybe it because I'm just so not a writer.

Author: Patricia Clarkson

The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and no other task is of any consequence.

Author: Cyril Connolly

The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.

Author: Robertson Davies

You don't say, I'm going to be a writer when I grow up - at least I didn't.

Author: Anthony Doerr

I mean, the problem is, I think I'm a great writer.

Author: Aaron Eckhart

If you wish to be a writer, write.

Author: Epictetus

There's one good kind of writer - a dead one.

Author: James Farrell

A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid.

Author: William Faulkner

Raymond Carver is good. I think he'll be appreciated more and more. He's an easy writer to imitate.

Author: Leslie Fiedler

When somebody asks me what I do, I don't think I'd say critic. I say writer.

Author: Leslie Fiedler

I feel as if I'm clearly part of a trend among writers who take themselves seriously - and I confess to taking myself as seriously as the next writer.

Author: Jonathan Franzen

The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.

Author: Robert Frost

I'm a fairly undisciplined writer.

Author: Neil Gaiman

I think of myself as a writer who happens to be doing his writing as an anthropologist.

Author: Clifford Geertz

I don't think of myself as a director or writer. I think of myself as a filmmaker.

Author: Conrad Hall

I was quite a reader before I became a writer.

Author: Tom Hall

I became a writer in spite of my environments.

Author: Robert Howard

I do not consider myself a Hispanic writer.

Author: Guillermo Infante

I am the only British writer who writes in Spanish.

Author: Guillermo Infante

The relationship between reader and characters is very difficult. It is even more peculiar than the relationship between the writer and his characters.

Author: Guillermo Infante

I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself.

Author: Guillermo Infante

I am a writer of fragments.

Author: Guillermo Infante

I'm a schoolteacher and a writer. So that's what I do.

Author: Bruce Jackson

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

Author: Kenneth Koch

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

Author: Karl Kraus

There are numerous cases of that, where one of our writers discovers another writer whom he likes, and we then take that book on. So it's a very close relationship. We can do that because we're so small.

Author: James Laughlin

Then, of course, there are those sad occasions when a poet or a writer has not grown, and one has to let them go because they're just not making headway. But we have a very clear personal relationship with the authors.

Author: James Laughlin

I'm a writer, and what I do is write. I wasn't able to do anything else.

Author: Hugh Leonard

I had always wanted to be a writer who confused genre boundaries and who was read in multiple contexts.

Author: Jonathan Lethem

Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.

Author: George Lucas

I'm not a born writer, and I don't enjoy writing.

Author: Alistair Maclean

It is one test of a fully developed writer that he reminds us of no one but himself.

Author: Melvin Maddocks

Every writer has to find their own way into writing.

Author: Margaret Mahy

Well, you just know, as a writer, I didn't really write one of the five best screenplays of the year. There were lots of brilliant screenplays; I was just one of the lucky ones who got nominated.

Author: Patrick Marber

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

Author: W. Maugham

I didn't raise Todd to be a writer, but he happened to be one anyway.

Author: Anne McCaffrey

I have an editor in my head, that's why I can't read Harry Potter, because Rowling is such a lousy writer.

Author: Colleen McCullough

I'm a fast writer.

Author: Terry McMillan

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

Author: James Michener

No, you're either born a writer, a storyteller, or you're not.

Author: John Milius

You know you lose a lot of social skills if you're a writer. You spend too long alone. And its forced me to address that.

Author: Anthony Minghella

Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.

Author: Marianne Moore

A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself.

Author: Marianne Moore

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

Author: Anais Nin

The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.

Author: Flannery O'Connor

I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.

Author: Flannery O'Connor

As a writer, one is busy with archaeology.

Author: Michael Ondaatje

Sean's a great, great writer.

Author: Robin Penn

I am the worlds laziest writer.

Author: Oscar Peterson

Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write.

Author: J. Priestley

I haven't been the kind of writer about whom book-length academic studies have been written.

Author: Manuel Puig

Obviously, a writer can't know everything about what she writes. It's impossible.

Author: Anne Rice

I was never really a writer, I was always more of a performer.

Author: Mick Ronson

The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.

Author: Leo Rosten

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.

Author: Leo Rosten

I never intended to be a professional writer; as the story developed, the one thing I had in my hopes was that this would be something tangible to separate me from the nameless, numbered masses.

Author: R. Salvatore

I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.

Author: Carl Sandburg

I'm a performer, comedian, entertainer, writer and director.

Author: William Shatner

No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys it, even if he doesn't get paid.

Author: Irwin Shaw

Every writer is a writer of the generation before.

Author: Wilfrid Sheed

I didn't go out of my way to get into this movie stuff. I think of myself as a writer.

Author: Sam Shepard

No one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published.

Author: Dan Simmons

As a very experienced writer once told me, 'It's in the rewrites'.

Author: Tom Skerritt

Rarely ever see or meet the writer during shooting.

Author: Tom Skerritt

TV writing is different than other mediums, involving the writer.

Author: Tom Skerritt

If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer.

Author: Patti Smith

Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other.

Author: Stephen Sondheim

One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.

Author: Wole Soyinka

I suppose I'm most influenced by any good, commercial writer. I learn from everyone.

Author: Nicholas Sparks

I'm a commercial writer, not an author. Margaret Mitchell was an author. She wrote one book.

Author: Mickey Spillane

It's okay to be a bad writer if you have something to say.

Author: Bill Stott

The writer's shortness of breath became more and more distressing as he rose.

Author: Hudson Stuck

As a writer no one's gonna tell me how to write, I'm gonna write the way I wanna write!

Author: Jacqueline Susann

As a writer, I've always been interested in others.

Author: Antonio Tabucchi

If I really considered myself a writer, I wouldn't be writing screenplays. I'd be writing novels.

Author: Quentin Tarantino

I'm very happy with the way I write. I think I do it good. But I've never really considered myself a writer.

Author: Quentin Tarantino

I think Juan stopped short - he got halfway to the destination and got off the train. He is certainly an excellent writer and a good person, but I'm not a nationalist.

Author: Clarence Thomas

A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.

Author: P. Travers

Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works.

Author: John Updike

I was too heavy to be a jockey and too honest to be a producer, so I became a writer.

Author: Leon Uris

Poe is the only impeccable writer. He was never mistaken.

Author: Paul Valery

So must the writer, whose productions should Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould.

Author: Edmund Waller

The Onion Field made a real writer. And then I knew it was over, I couldn't be a cop anymore.

Author: Joseph Wambaugh

Calvino was not a writer of hits; he was a writer of classics.

Author: William Weaver

I've experienced writer's block, but never for more than a few days.

Author: Walter Williams

When I was about 14 or 15 I decided to become a writer and never for a moment since have I wanted to do anything else.

Author: Tobias Wolff

I don't believe in kicking away ladders. By that, I mean the ladders by which I ascended as a young writer, small magazines that didn't pay anything, and that sort of thing.

Author: George Woodcock

Embrace the journey of self-discovery, for authenticity is not found in conformity but in the courage to be true to yourself.

Author: Maya Angelou

Believe in the power of your own story, for it has the potential to inspire and uplift others.

Author: Jordan Thompson

Do not wait for inspiration. Create it.

Author: Jack London