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Authorship Quotes

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Authorship Quotes

“One picks one's way about through the glass and aluminum doors, the receptionists' smiles, the lunches with too much alcohol, the openings with more, the mobs of people desperately trying to define good taste in such loud voices one can hardly hear oneself giggle, while the shebang is lit by flashes and flares through the paint-stained window, glimmers under the police-locked door, or, if one is taking a rare walk outside that day, by a light suffusing the whole sky, complex as the northern aurora.”

ArtTasteAuthorship
Book:Dhalgren
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“You’re in a story and the body writing it is an asshole. You had to know that, given the action. The story you’re in tells you like firing a gun…[I] had enough of it, of things happening one after another and no end in sight. Of reversals and falling in love and tragic flaws and by God if I see another motif in my business I will shoot it dead.”

StoriesHumorPower Of WordsWriting ProcessAuthorshipFictional Worlds
Book:Six-Gun Snow White
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“I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]' ...I can see that he's excited. [narrator]' ...Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.(Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.)Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho ... Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation—none other than an interest in being born again as somebody else—suggests that he is not happy!”

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Author:Roman Payne
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“I do not often reveal weakness in my writing. I tell stories in magnificent terms; I am, as a person, the ultimate case study in hyperbole. I tell stories borne from passion or anger or righteous conviction, I want to incite a revolution in your heart; I tell stories that are godly and Grand, I am the Great Gatsby of impressive tropes and fiery forging chaos strummed into smooth endings with an adjective; I am a teller of magnificent fables; I am a glutton of adjectival delicacy, I construct empires in paragraphs where villages are more appropriate; you ask me for an apple, I give you ten, then if you hesitate to speak, I will give you six more.”

WritingSelfNarcissismAuthorshipAuthors On Writing
Author:Alice Minium
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“The Author To Her Book Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth did'st by my side remain, Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad exposed to public view, Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judge). At thy return my blushing was not small, My rambling brat (in print) should mother call. I cast thee by as one unfit for light, The visage was so irksome in my sight, Yet being mine own, at length affection would Thy blemishes amend, if so I could. I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw. I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet, Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet. In better dress to trim thee was my mind, But nought save home-spun cloth, i' th' house I find. In this array, 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam. In critic's hands, beware thou dost not come, And take thy way where yet thou art not known. If for thy father askt, say, thou hadst none; And for thy mother, she alas is poor, Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.”

WritingPoetryBooksPerfectionCriticismCompositionPublicationAuthorshipCraft
Book:The Works of Anne Bradstreet
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“We will not be characters in our stories. Not villains, not victims, not even heros. We are authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings. We craft love from heartbreak, compassion from shame, grace from disappointment, courage from failure. Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and broken hearted. We are rising strong.”

PsychologySelf HelpPersonal GrowthSelf DiscoveryWho We AreInner StrengthTruth Of LifeAuthorshipWisdom Or Knowledge
Book:Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution
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“Novel-writing has in one respect an affinity to the drama—that time and distance are required to soften for use the harsher features that may be exhibited from real life; that it was almost impossible to bring forward events without touching on their causes; and that any tendency to political discussion, however liberal or applicable, was not to be tolerated in a sort of work which people took up with no other design than to be amused at the least possible expence of thought.”

WritingPoliticsNovelRevolutionNovelsNovel WritingAuthorshipPolitical Writing
Book:Marchmont: A Novel
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“And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes. A novel for me is an immersive experience where I feel as if I have lived it and that I've tasted the food and experienced the sex and experienced the terror of battle. So I want all of the detail, all of the sensory things—whether it's a good experience, or a bad experience, I want to put the reader through it. To that mind, detail is necessary, showing not telling is necessary, and nothing is gratuitous.”

InspirationalPurposeReadingStorytellingMeaningAuthorship
Author:George R. R. Martin
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“Secara singkat, aku selalu memperkenalkan diri sebagai pengarang atau novelis. Tanpa tambahan "pengarang wanita" atau "pengarang sastra" maupun mengatakan bahwa aku adalah seorang "sastrawan atau sastrawati". Aku tidak berpretensi sebagai "seorang sastrawati". Orang-orang lain, termasuk para cendekiawanlah yang mengenalkan sebutan itu terhadap diriku.”

LiteratureFeminismAuthorFemale EmpowermentProfessionalismAuthorship
Book:Dari Rue Saint Simon ke Jalan Lembang
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“In my opinion, the author-level metric can distort a real author's citation impact. For example, an author who has an h-index = 2 obtained on the basis of two published papers of which each is cited twenty times is more influential than an author who has an h-index = 3 obtained on the basis of three published papers of which each is cited three times.”

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Author:Eraldo Banovac
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“None of the things I have mentioned can make a foolish man wise or a bad book good. But when they are properly used they remind us that the act of reading is an act of confidence, and almost of conspiracy, between one human being and another. That conspiracy can get nowhere, and that confidence can be betrayed. But if all goes well the reader may put down the book at the end and say what the author - and this author is no exception - most wants to hear:'I learned a lot from your book, but what is more to the point is I had a very good time.”

ReadingBooksAuthorshipLove Of Books
Book:The Meanings Of Modern Art. Complete Set
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“It may take a decade or two before the extent of Shakespeare's collaboration passes from the graduate seminar to the undergraduate lecture, and finally to popular biography, by which time it will be one of those things about Shakespeare that we thought we knew all along. Right now, though, for those who teach the plays and write about his life, it hasn't been easy abandoning old habits of mind. I know that I am not alone in struggling to come to terms with how profoundly it alters one's sense of how Shakespeare wrote, especially toward the end of his career when he coauthored half of his last ten plays. For intermixed with five that he wrote alone, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest, are Timon of Athens (written with Thomas Middleton), Pericles (written with George Wilkins), and Henry the Eighth, the lost Cardenio, and The Two Noble Kinsmen (all written with John Fletcher).”

TeachingCollaborationShakespeareAuthorshipHistory Of Thought
Book:Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?
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“[Henry James'] essay's closing lines can either be read neutrally or as a more purposeful wish that this mystery [of Shakespeare's authorship] will one day be resolved by the 'criticism of the future': 'The figured tapestry, the long arras that hides him, is always there ... May it not then be but a question, for the fullness of time, of the finer weapon, the sharper point, the stronger arm, the more extended lunge?' Is Shakespeare hinting here that one day critics will hit upon another, more suitable candidate, identify the individual in whom the man and artist converge and are 'one'? If so, his choice of metaphor - recalling Hamlet's lunge at the arras in the closet scene - is fortunate. Could James have forgotten that the sharp point of Hamlet's weapon finds the wrong man?”

AuthorshipHenry JamesShakespeare Criticism
Book:Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?
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“Writing a second book is not like writing the first. I don't mean that every book is different, though of course there's an element of that. The crucial difference is that when you write your first book, you don't have a publisher, which means you don't have a deadline. Deadlines-well. Deadlines put a whole new spin on this writing lark.”

WritingBooksPublishingPublishersWriting A BookAuthorshipCreative ThinkingDeadlines
Book:The Missing Years
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“Finding a balance between tradition and originality is essential; yet many writers struggle with it. Some aim for originality at any cost, ultimately confusing or frustrating their audience. Others, so fearful of deviating from established formulas, produce derivative and forgettable stories. The most successful works of modern times offer a unique take on classic themes, making their stories relevant to their generation.”

StorytellingWriting ProcessAuthor QuotesWriting AdviceNovel WritingAuthorshipStory WritingStorytelling QuotesWriter About WritingWriter Advice
Book:The Natural Laws of Story: Master the Art and Science of Engaging Narratives
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“Every article and review and book that I have ever published has constituted an appeal to the person or persons to whom I should have talked before I dared to write it. I never launch any little essay without the hope—and the fear, because the encounter may also be embarrassing—that I shall draw a letter that begins, 'Dear Mr. Hitchens, it seems that you are unaware that…' It is in this sense that authorship is collaborative with 'the reader.' And there's no help for it: you only find out what you ought to have known by pretending to know at least some of it already. It doesn't matter how obscure or arcane or esoteric your place of publication may be: some sweet law ensures that the person who should be scrutinizing your work eventually does do so.”

WritingBooksWritersCollaborationArticlesEssaysReadersAuthorshipBook Reviews
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“He showed, in a few words, that it is not sufficient to throw together a few incidents that are to be met with in every romance, and that to dazzle the spectator the thought should be new, without being farfetched; frequently sublime, but always natural; the author should have a thorough knowledge of the human heart and make it speak properly; he should be a complete poet, without showing an affectation of it in any of the characters of his piece; he should be a perfect master of his language, speak it with all its pruity and with the utmost harmony, and yet so as not to make the sense a slave to the rhyme. Whoever, added he, neglects any one of these rules, though he may write two or three tragedies with tolerable success, will never be reckoned in the number of good authors.”

WritingAuthorship
Book:Candide
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