18 Quirky Quotes from Famous Writers

Mark Twain - Wikimedia Commons



1. Unproved with original learnings, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. Edward Gibbon

2. Until he starts to sell, a writer is a bum to his family, a lazy lout to his friends, and a self-deluding parasite to his neighbours. When he becomes known, he is "one helluva neighbor" to his neighbors, a genius to his friends, and a favourite cousin to his family. But none of them buy his books. Clifford Welles

3. The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from. Gene Fowler

4. If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research. Wilson Mizner. 

5. Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good. Samuel Johnson 

6. An author is a fool who, not content with boring his contemporaries, insists on boring future generations. Baron de la Bred, et de Montesquieu  

7. You can never correct your work well until you have forgotten it.  Voltaire

8. Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use. Mark Twain.

9. You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living. George Bernard Shaw

10. A writer never relaxes. Even his love affairs are a kind of research - but they're not tax deductible. Gene Fowler

11, If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves. Don Marquis

12. Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. Georges Simenon  

13. If you try to nail anything down in the novel, either it kills the novel, or the novel gets up and walks away with the nail.  D.H. Lawrence 

14. In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style. Sydney Smith 

15. As to the adjective, when in doubt, strike it out.  Mark Twain 

16. Write out of love, write out of instinct, write out of reason.  But always for money. Louis Untermeyer. 

17. Only connect!... Only connect the prose and the passion. E.M. Forster 

18. Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. Henry David Thoreau. 



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