"Every writer, without exception, is a masochist, a sadist, a peeping Tom, an exhibitionist, a narcissist, an injustice collector and a depressed person constantly haunted by fears of unproductivity." -Edmund Bergler

"It's important that a novel be approached with some urgency. Spend too long on it, or have great gaps between writing sessions, and the unity of the work tends to be lost." -Anthony Burgess

"An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate." -François-August-René de Chateaûbriand

"An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children" -Benjamin Disreali

"Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped." -Lillian Hellman

"Real seriousness in regard to writing is one of the two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent." -Ernest Hemingway

"I'm not happy when I'm writing, but I'm more unhappy when I'm not." -Fannie Hurst

"The classics are only primitive literature. They belong in the same class as primitive machinery and primitive music and primitive medicine." -Stephen Leacock

"Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes." -John LeCarre

"Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical." -W. Somerset Maugham

"I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it." -Toni Morrison

"Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs." -John Osborne

"Anything that is written to please the author is worthless." -Blaise Pascal

"Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer." -Frederic Raphael

"Writing is a profession in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none." -Jules Renard

"As she fell face down into the black muck of the mud-wrestling pit, her sweaty 300-pound opponent muttering soft curses in Latin on top of her, Sister Marie thought, 'There is no doubt about it; the Pope has betrayed me.'" -Richard Savastio, entry in San Jose State's bad writing contest, 1983

"Jake liked his women the way he liked his kiwi fruit; sweet yet tart, firm-fleshed yet yielding to the touch, and covered with short brown fuzzy hair." -Gretchen Schmidt, entry in San Jose State's bad writing contest, 1989

"An absolutely necessary part of a writer's equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands and the punishment he inflicts upon himself." -Irwin Shaw

"He is so stupid you can't trust him with an idea.
He is so clever he will catch you in the least error.
He will not buy long books.
He will not buy short books.
He is part moron, part genius and part ogre.
There is some doubt as to whether he can read." -John Steinbeck, on readers

"Everyone who does not need to be a writer, who thinks he can do something else, ought to do something else." -Georges Simenon

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." -Mark Twain

"Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense." -Mark Twain

"Write out of love; write out of instinct; write out of reason. But always for money." -Louis Untermeyer