105 Quotes About Authorship

. . . but what was surprising and difficult of explanation was the fact that sex—woman, that is to say—also attracts agreeable essayists, light-fingered novelists, young men who have taken the M.A. degree; men who have taken no degree; men who have no apparent qualification save that they are not women. . . . It was a most strange phenomenon; and apparently—here I consulted the letter M—one confined to the male sex. Women donot write books about men . . .

I was arguing not that everyone should read books by ladies—though shifting the balance matters—but that maybe the whole point of reading is to be able to explore and also transcend your gender (and race and class and orientation and nationality and moment in history and age and ability) and experience being others.

Some people have a lot of time, but no money--It's because they don't work hard enough.Some people have a lot of money, but no time--It's because they don't work smart enough.The most successful people have both.

an author is not a liar, I speak from my deepest truth, I tell readers how I see things in my own view, people have to know me the real me, not the mask I wear.

The pen is the tongue of the mind.

A writer's problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and, having found what is true, to project it in such a way that it becomes a part of the experience of the person who reads it.

Use lots of exclamation points. They love to be overused.

Only mothers will ever know the true struggle and sacrifice it takes to create life. Authors come in at a close second.

Somebody told me I'm a writer. I believed them. Now I regret it.