Authorial Authority Quotes

I wish I could go back and rewrite my first book, You Bright and Risen Angels; I could do a better job. But in the meantime, nobody knows as much about my books as I do. Nobody has the right but me to say which words go into my books or get deleted or edited. When I'm dying, I'll smile, knowing I stood up for my books. If I die with more money, that wouldn't bring a smile to my face. Unless I got better drugs or more delicious-looking nurses.

A writer has to fully defend his rights and his own worth.

I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed.

What we call fiction is the ancient way of knowing, the total discourse that antedates all the special vocabularies....Fiction is democratic, it reasserts the authority of the single mind to make and remake the world.

Those who read the fiction assume that, because I'm also a historian, I know what I'm talking about.

I don't take story input from fans.

I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.

I'm pretty ruthless about that; I think when you sign over your story, you sign over your story.

I think my writing changed when I put 'the' in front of my titles. It had more command.

All the uncontrollable and unpredictable parts of my life - from the actual creation to my emotional responses to the finished book - I've succeeded in banishing to the office. And I think I'm happier for it.

I think when you're working with a character that another writer is acting as - for lack of a better word - custodian of, your obligation as a professional is to not do anything that violates that 'primary' take.

I maintain that any writer of a book is fully authorised in attaching any meaning he likes to a word or phrase he intends to use. If I find an author saying, at the beginning of his book, "Let it be understood that by the word 'black' I shall always mean 'white,' and by the word 'white' I shall always mean 'black,'" I meekly accept his ruling, however injudicious I think it.

Novels are political because in them, we try to identify with people who are not like us. And, in that sense, I like the first-person singular because I have to imitate accurately the voice of someone who is not like me. The third-person singular gives me an authority over a character.

You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss.

In the country of the story the writer is king.