A Quote by Fay Weldon

Writers were never meant to be professionals. Writing is not a profession, it is an activity, an essentially amateur occupation. It is what you do when you are not living.

Fay Weldon

Quote Topics

Activity Amateur Essentially Living Meant Meant To Be Never Occupation Profession Professionals Were Writers Writing

Quote Author

Fay Weldon
English - Writer
Born: September 22, 1931

Writing novels is an essentially amateur activity.

Jane Smiley

I can fairly be called an amateur because I do what I do, in the original sense of the word - for love, because I love it. On the other hand, I think that those of us who make our living writing history can also be called true professionals.

David McCullough

There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well

Agatha Christie

I enjoy writing, sometimes; I think that most writers will tell you about the agony of writing more than the joy of writing, but writing is what I was meant to do.

Leon Uris

Writing is, of course, a solitary occupation. But for many writers, myself included, it's through writing that we make certain vital connections.

Elizabeth Berg

To me, writing is not a profession. You might as well call living a profession. Or having children. Anything you can't help doing.

Vicki Baum

You're...writing for other writers to an extent-the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read.

Raymond Carver

It's one of the strangest attributes of this profession that when we writers get exhausted writing one thing, we relax by writing another.

Dan Simmons

I don't really think that writers, even great writers, are prophets, or sages, or Messiah-like figures; writing is a lonely, sedentary occupation and a touch of megalomania can be comforting around five on a November afternoon when you haven't seen anybody all day.

Angela Carter

You see guys in amateur contest who are much better conditioned than the professionals. To me the professionals should be better. Just because they are bigger, it doesn't mean they are better.

Dorian Yates

While writing, writers are living inside a character or characters, and when the book ekes into the world, writers are living inside the reader. That's more than connecting.

Lauren Groff

Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion.

J. D. Salinger

Writing is not a profession, occupation or job; it is not a way of life: it is a comprehensive response to life.

Gregory Mcdonald

Usually the amateur is defined as an immature state of the artist: someone who cannot — or will not — achieve the mastery of a profession. But in the field of photographic practice, it is the amateur, on the contrary, who is the assumption of the professional: for it is he who stands closer to the (i)noeme(i) of Photography.

Roland Barthes

The nineteenth century was the last moment in history when a relatively educated layperson could follow what was going on in the world of science and invention to a wide degree. Also, there were no "professionals". This was a time when amateur explorers, naturalists and enthusiasts were are still making major contributions to progress.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Writing is not a great profession as a lot of writers proclaim. I write because this is something I can do. Another thing—very often I think a lot of writers write because they have failed to do other things. How many writers can’t drive? A lot. They’re not practical. They are not capable in everyday life.

Ha Jin

A Quote by Fay Weldon

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors