105 Quotes About Authorship

Of all unfortunate men one of the unhappiest is a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism.

All authors to their own defects are blind.

Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point.

Who left nothing of authorship untouched, and touched nothing which he did not adorn. [Lat., Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit; nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.]

Whatever hath been written shall remain, Nor be erased nor written o'er again; The unwritten only still belongs to thee: Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be.

Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.