Tom Drury Quotes

You don't become a poet if you want to make any money.

It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful.

I've never done work for money ever. If your choices are based on grosses and the film doesn't do well, what does that mean? It leaves you with nothing.

That has to remain the principal reason for doing it, doesn't it? I know it's possible to write for money, and many very good writers have done so. But for me, it has to remain the principal thing that I actually want to do the writing.

I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death. They thought nobody can make a living from being a writer in Brazil. They were not wrong.

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.

If your purpose is to make money, you shouldn't get into writing.

After 'Lost', I never need to take a job for the money again.

I never became a writer for the money. I am a poet first. Even getting published is a miracle for poets.

For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writers are able to learn a living from their work that is equivalent to the living earned by the average dentist or accountant.

I love making money, but you can't live your life waiting to get rich in a job that no longer feeds you artistically.

I didn't think that a career in theater was very realistic so I thought the only thing I could make money doing and still be somewhat artistic was, god help me, advertising.

I never turned down a movie because they wouldn't give me enough money.

I think any writer is a fool if he doesn't do it for money. There needs to be some kind of incentive in addition to the project. It all goes together. It's fun to sit there and think of characters and get them into action, then be paid for it. I can't believe it when writers tell me 'I don't want to show my work to anybody'.

I got a couple of stories published, but the kind of money you were making for publishing a short story, I could see I wasn't going to make a living at it.

It is indeed difficult to make a living as a writer, and my advice to anyone contemplating a literary career is to have some other trade.

Parents, it seems, have an almost Olympian persistence when it comes to suggesting more secure and lucrative lines of work for their children who have the notion that writing is an actual profession. I say this from experience.

Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.

When I was a child, there was very little money, so I've always been concerned for my financial security, which has meant that finding myself as a writer was a bad move. The practical difference the money has made is that I can support myself by fiction. That is what I have been trying to do throughout my life.

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

If you must have motivation, think of your paycheck on Friday.

I would recommend, definitely, developing a 'day job' that you like - don't expect to make money writing!

It's hard to make a living as a novelist. My first novel 'Tapping the Source' made quite a splash in Hollywood, and people started asking if I wanted to write scripts. I quickly realized I could make a lot more money that way.

The money isn't a lure. I've done very well out of this business.

When I speak to students and they ask how much money you can make in art, as if that is a reason to persue it, I tell them to do something else.