Janet Frame Quotes

If I were to have a dream job, it would probably be a poet. Then again, I don't think I'm a very good poet!

I knew I wanted to be a writer before I knew that being a writer was possible.

At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it.

I'm a poet, and I spent my life in poetry.

At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet.

As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer.

I wanted to be a writer since I was in high school, but I never thought it was possible.

Even if I couldn't get my early novels published, I could still write. I went into newspapers, where I got paid to write every day. If there's a better school for would-be novelists, I don't know what it is.

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.

I've been a writer for 42 years and, yes, it is a full time job for me. Not a hobby, but serious work.

I knew that I wanted to be a writer even before I knew exactly what being a writer entailed.

I started out as a poet. I've always been a poet since I was 7 or 8. And so I feel myself to be fundamentally a poet who got into writing novels.

I always knew I wanted to be a writer.

I wasn't one of those kids who grew up wanting to write or who read a particular book and thought: 'I want to do that!' I always told stories and wrote them down, but I never thought writing was a career path, even though, clearly, someone was writing the books and newspapers and magazines.

I've never been a model, I was an actress for like a minute, but I've always been a writer. That's where I'm going to stay.

I saw novelists as being admirable people and I thought... I thought... maybe, one day, I could be one of them.

This sounds like a cliche, but I always wanted to write. After college, I did some writing and realized very quickly that it's hard to make a living as a writer. At that point, I was more interested in fiction writing.

I always loved writing, but never considered that I could do it professionally.

I tell young people who ask me about a future in writing not to go into it unless they get married to someone rich.

Writing was my first occupation, begun at age 23.

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.

It was my fifth grade teacher who introduced the idea that writing could be more than a hobby for me.

My dad was an editor and a writer, and that's actually what I aspired to be.

Writing doesn't leave much time for hobbies, unless you consider that I began writing as a hobby and have made the hobby into a profession.

I want to be a writer someday.