Samuel Johnson Quotes

Some reviews give pain. This is regrettable, but no author has the right to whine. He was not obliged to be an author. He invited publicity, and he must take the publicity that comes along.

An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace.

If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you'll never be a novelist.

The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply.

You may be able to write a novel, you may not. You will never know until you have worked very hard indeed and written at least part of it. You will never really know until you have written the whole of it and submitted it for publication.

If people are going to write bad things about me because it makes news, I can brush it aside because I've had this for 10 years. I'm big enough and strong enough to cope with it. It's what comes with being Alan Shearer.

Most people can start a short story or a novel. If you're a writer, you can finish them. Finish enough of them, and you may be good enough to be publishable.

A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.

The best time to tell your story is when you have to tell your story. When it's not really a choice. But then, when you get that first, messy, complicated version down, you have to read it over and be very tough on yourself and ask, 'Well what's the story here?' If you're lucky enough to have someone you trust looking over your shoulder, he or she can help you if [you] lack perspective on your own story.

Whatever may be the success of my stories, I shall be resolute in preserving my incognito, having observed that a nom de plume secures all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation.

Why should I expect to be exempt from censure; the unfailing lot of an elevated station? My Heart tells me it has been my unremitted aim to do the best circumstances would permit; yet, I may have been very often mistaken in my judgment of the means.

I'm afraid that surprise, shock, and regret is the fate of authors when they finally see themselves on the page.

I'm not reading currently because I'm getting revisions of a novel. If I read while I'm writing I will unconsciously plagiarize and go to jail.

If you just sit there, and you're a writer, you're bound to write crap. A lot of American writing is crap. And a lot of American writers are professionals.

Often it doesn't occur to you what kind of novel you're writing until quite late on.

When I write a page that reads badly I know that it is myself who has written it. When it reads well it has come through from somewhere else.

I have been attacked by media critics and just critics of my own for years. And that, unfortunately, is part of the job in 2016 America. I was used to that. And I've developed a thick skin.

There are some writers who also enjoy being authors, and are good at it as well. There is nothing performative about writing, but there is about being a writer.

I came out with a book called The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language. It's a book that describes how writing is a practice and how my teaching is part of that practice. I direct the writing and create books but underneath, there's always the river of practice happening. No good, no bad. Just do it.

I'm much more a writer than an actor. Although I have a great respect for that and I enjoy acting still, it really is about the world that I'm creating. That's where my future is.

One wouldn't want to say that what makes a good writer is the number of books that the writer wrote because you could write a whole number of bad books. Books that don't work, mediocre books, or there's a whole bunch of people in the pulp tradition who have done that. They just wrote... and actually they didn't write a whole bunch of books, they just wrote one book many times.

Regardless of the criticisms I receive from the left, the right and the middle, I think it's important to maintain a prolific writing jab, as long as my literary legs hold up.

As much fun as it is to read a book, writing a book is one level deeper than that.

David Simon goes to the Jewish Weekly and said he's made all this money, but he can't enjoy it because of criticism by people like Ishmael Reed.

Come, let’s be calm: no one incapable of restraint was ever a writer.