A Quote by Paddy Chayefsky

I'm not a great writer. I'm a great rewriter.

Paddy Chayefsky

Quote Topics

Great Writer

Quote Author

Paddy Chayefsky
American - Novelist
January 29, 1923 - August 1, 1981

I've been wrestling with Kafka since I was an adolescent. I think he's a great aphorist, a great letter writer, a great diarist, a great short story writer, and a great novelist - I'd put novelist last.

John Banville

A man can write one book that can be great, but this doesn't make him a great writer-just the writer of a great book. . . I think a writer has to extend very widely, as well as plunge very deep, to be a great novelist.

Anthony Burgess

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

James A. Michener

I wish I was a great writer or a great journalist or a great scientist or a great artist; I'm not.

Nicolas Berggruen

A great writer is a great writer... Tolstoy was not a woman, but 'Anna Karenina' is still a pretty good book.

Phil Klay

I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add.

Gore Vidal

Not only do you need great lyrics, a great message, a great story, great vocals, great chords... you also need great instrumentation, great editing, great sonics, great mixing, and great mastering. It all comes together to make something truly great, and I think each element combines together to create a powerful impact on the consumer.

Joey Sturgis

I think you must remember that a writer is a simple-minded person to begin with and go on that basis. He's not a great mind, he's not a great thinker, he's not a great philosopher, he's a story-teller.

Erskine Caldwell

He [Samuel Beckett] is great, a very great writer. Any modern writer is bound to be influenced by [James] Joyce. Of course, by Beckett as well.

William S. Burroughs

Great is Youth--equally great is Old Age--great are Day and Night. Great is Wealth--great is Poverty--great is Expression-great is Silence.

Walt Whitman

There are certain functions that a writer has to do. In a time of crisis, it is great to have heroic poems, as it was in the Irish Revolution. It's great to have great songs, because people need something to sing when they are marching. That's OK, but it should be on the side. It's not the ultimate thing.

Derek Walcott

It is not great talents or great learning or great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God.

Edward McKendree Bounds

Even though I don't write about things that come from my life because I'm lucky, and I live in a great place with great kids and, you know, a great husband, I think you can find threads of me in the characters, so that's really what being a writer is, probably.

Jodi Picoult

I have never pretended to be a great writer. I am totally immodest about being a great reporter and a good news writer. I write fast and I write accurately, nearly as accurately as anybody can be, and that's my skill.