A Quote by John le Carre

Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.

John le Carre

Quote Topics

Authentic Credible Every Fiction Fiction Writer Knows Rather Than Would Writer

Quote Author

John le Carre
English - Writer
Born: October 19, 1931

As every writer knows... there is something mysterious about the writer's ability, on any given day, to write. When the juices are flowing, or the writer is 'hot', an invisible wall seems to fall away, and the writer moves easily and surely from one kind of reality to another... Every writer has experienced at least moments of this strange, magical state. Reading student fiction one can spot at once where the power turns on and where it turns off, where the writer writes from 'inspiration' or deep, flowing vision, and where he had to struggle along on mere intellect.

John Gardner

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

Cynthia Ozick

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, dont confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

Cynthia Ozick

I should think just about every young writer - which I was at the time - would be influenced by HPL. As an American writer of weird fiction, he was at the top of the class.

Brian Lumley

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation.

Tana French

The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that I am sure is why he does it.

Roald Dahl

I don't believe a poet has a better hold on truth or morality than a fiction writer has. And I don't think a fiction writer has anything over a journalist. It's all about the good word, properly inserted.

Colum McCann

There's the fact that American fiction is basically the most apolitical fiction on the globe. A South American writer wouldn't dare think of writing a novel if it didn't allude to the system into which these people are orchestrated - or an Eastern European writer, or a Russian writer, or a Chinese writer. Only American writers are able to imagine that the government and the corporations - all of it - seem to have no effect whatsoever.

Michael Cunningham

The reader knows the writer better than he knows himself; but the writer's physical presence is light from a star that has moved on.

John Updike

It feels as though a very disproportionate number of main characters are writers, because that's what the writer knows. Fair enough. But nothing bothers me more in a movie than an actor playing a writer, and you just know he's not a writer. Writers recognize other writers. Ethan Hawke is too hot to be a writer.

B. J. Novak

The story knows itself better than the writer does at some point, knows what's being said before the writer figures out how to say it.

Joy Williams

Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.

Kurt Vonnegut

If you are going to be a writer, you have to have self-belief, every writer gets rejections, they say the difference between a successful and unsuccessful writer is an unsuccessful writer gives up, if you keep going you will succeed.

Anthony Horowitz

One of the most useful parts of my education as a writer was the practice of reading a writer straight through - every book the writer published, in chronological order, to see how the writer changed over time, and to see how the writer's idea of his or her project changed over time, and to see all the writer tried and accomplished or failed to accomplish.