Good Writers Quotes - Page 7

• A good writer wants from us — or has no right to ask more than — intelligence, good faith and time.

  John Jeremiah Sullivan

  Want, Good Faith, Asks

  "How William Faulkner Tackled Race — and Freed the South From Itself". www.nytimes.com. June 28, 2012.

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• Absolutely breathtaking, nail-biting, and edge-of-your-seat. Michael Koryta is a master at maintaining suspense and a hell of a good writer. THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD is one of the best chase-and-escape novels you’ll read this year-or any other year. The pace never lets up.

  Nelson DeMille

  Years, Wish, Nails

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• I became a good writer when I saw the age of forty coming at me

  Pat Mora

  Age, Saws, Forty

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• Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego.

  John Cheever

  Writing, Ego, Promise

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• I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts.

  Alexander Pope

  Believe, Forgiving, Vices

  Alexander Pope (1873). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope Edited with Notes and Introductory Memoir by Adolphus William Ward”, p.4

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• On the other hand, at some level the mass of unresolved issues in Northern Ireland does influence the fact that there are so many good writers in the place.

  Paul Muldoon

  Issues, Hands, Facts

  Interview with John Redmond, www.poetrymagazines.org.uk. November 2, 1995.

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• Neil [Gaiman, creator of the comic Sandman, featuring the Amos-based character Delirium] believes that faeries have gone beyond cool. They've transcended cool. I just think alternate realities make you a good writer. If your work is any more than one dimension, you believe in faeries. I'm sure I'll start thinking now about all the people I know who don't believe, that I quite like. We can still go have a pint. Not the Chardonnay, though.

  Tori Amos

  Believe, Character, Reality

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• Bad writers have influences. Good writers steal.

  S.M. Stirling

  Influence, Stealing

  Dragon Page "Cover to Cover" podcast interview, Episode #372A: S. M. Stirling, www.dragonpage.com, September 8, 2009.

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• Usually people who do bad things make good writers.I did a lot of bad things, which is why my novels are interesting.

  Jakucho Setouchi

  People, Interesting, Novel

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• The good stories, of course, write themselves. And somebody wants to know who are the really good writers, and how many of them there are. There aren't any. Most of the writers are likeable frauds. Some are unlikable frauds.

  R. A. Lafferty

  Writing, Stories, Want

  "It's Down the Slippery Cellar Stairs". Book by R. A. Lafferty, 1995.

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• Somehow, some way, incredibly enough, good writing ultimately gets recognized. If you're a really good writer and deserve that honored position, then by God, you'll write, and you'll be read.

  Rod Serling

  Writing, Way, Enough

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• You do an awful lot of bad writing in order to do any good writing. Incredibly bad. I think it would be very interesting to make a collection of some of the worst writing by good writers.

  William S. Burroughs

  Writing, Thinking, Order

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• When you combine something to say with the skill to say it properly, then you've got a good writer.

  Theodore Sturgeon

  Skills, Comeback

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• I think that people who can't believe in faeries aren't worth knowing. I just think that alternate realities make you a good writer. If your work is any more than one dimension, you believe in faeries.

  Tori Amos

  Believe, Reality, Thinking

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• There are three things you need to be a good writer: you need to read a lot, you need to write a lot, and you need a lot of feedback.

  Clay Shirky

  Writing, Three, Needs

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• Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich.

  William Faulkner

  Rich, Get Rich, Bother

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• I regard posterity as vulgar as success. I don't trust posterity. I don't think what's good is necessarily recognized in the long run. Too many good writers have disappeared.

  Peter Biskind

  Running, Thinking, Long

  Peter Biskind (2013). “My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles”, p.270, Macmillan

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• I cannot stand Tolstoy, and reading him was the most boring literary duty I ever had to perform, his philosophy and his sense of life are not merely mistaken, but evil, and yet, from a purely literary viewpoint, on his own terms, I have to evaluate him as a good writer.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Reading, Evil

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden (1966). “The Objectivist”

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• I would like it to be said that I was a good writer of detective and thriller stories.

  Agatha Christie

  Stories, Detectives, Thrillers

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• Evan Handler is not only a fine actor, he’s a damn good writer. It’s Only Temporary is wise and funny and as righteously indignant as it is endearingly self-effacing. In what may be a literary first, the book actually left me wanting more.

  Meghan Daum

  Wise, Book, Self

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• Good writers touch life often.

  Ray Bradbury

  Ray Bradbury (1951). “Fahrenheit 451: A Novel”, Simon and Schuster

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• When people say to me, 'Why are you so good at writing at women?' I say, 'Why isn't everybody?' Obviously there are differences between men and women - that's what makes it all fun. But we're all people. There's a lot of good writers who are very humanist, but still manage to kind of skip fifty-five per cent of the race. And I just don't get that. Not to be able to write an entire gender? To me, the question isn't how do you do it? It's how can you possibly avoid doing it?

  Joss Whedon

  Fun, Writing, Men

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• All the good writers of confessions, from Augustine onwards, are men who are still a little in love with their sins.

  Anatole France

  Men, Littles, Augustine

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• The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Writing, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.201, Penguin

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• Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.

  Raymond Carver

  Writing, World, Very Good

  Raymond Carver (2015). “Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories”, p.23, Vintage

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