A Quote by Renata Adler

That 'writers write' is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.

Renata Adler

Quote Topics

Drink Ever Evident Few Find Hardly Like Meant Meant To Be Met People Phone Rant Say Self Self-Evident Sleep True Very Write Writers

Quote Author

Renata Adler
Italian - Journalist
Born: October 19, 1938

I do have the feeling that other writers can't help you with writing. I've gone to writers' conferences and writers' sessions and writers' clinics, and the more I see of them, the more I'm sure it's the wrong direction. It isn't the place where you learn to write.

Nelson Algren

Let's stop reflexively comparing Chinese writers to Chinese writers, Indian writers to Indian writers, black writers to black writers. Let's focus on the writing itself: the characters, the language, the narrative style.

Celeste Ng

Here in New York, we're media obsessed. Writers write about writers who write about writers and reporters and freelancers, and it's just a festival of information. We're all analyzing and examining and predicting, and I can't imagine that it's like that everywhere else.

Lauren Weisberger

Lawyers, doctors, plumbers, they all made the money. Writers? Writers starved. Writers suicided. Writers went mad.

Charles Bukowski

I've met writers who wanted to be writers from the age of six, but I certainly had no feelings like that. It was only in the Philippines when I was about 15 that I started reading books by very contemporary writers of the Beatnik generation.

Romesh Gunesekera

Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.

Elmore Leonard

Ninety-five percent of all writers who write do not get published, but 100 percent of all writers write because they have a voice in their head. The vast majority of writers simply write because they have to.

Steve Berry

Most writers write to say something about other people - and it doesn't last. Good writers write to find out about themselves - and it lasts forever.

Gloria Steinem

There are good writers and bad writers. It's hard to find writers who really speak to you, but the work is out there.

Colson Whitehead

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

I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers who seem to be writing out of a desperate act. It's like their writing is part of a survival kit. Those are the writers that I just absolutely cherish and carry with me everywhere I go.

Sam Shepard

..few writers like other writers' works. The only time they like them is when they are dead or if they have been for a long time. Writers only like to sniff their own turds. I am one of those. I don't even like to talk to writers, look at them or worse, listen to them. And the worst is to drink with them, they slobber all over themselves, really look piteous, look like they are searching for the wing of the mother. I'd rather think about death than about other writers. Far more pleasant.

Charles Bukowski

We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.

Neil Gaiman

I know of three ways to recognize another writer: Writers are shamelessly nosy. Writers tell good stories, even about dumb old, daily things. On most writers, the earmarks of thrift, if not outright povery, are evident.

Joyce Thompson

I think all writers are mainly writing for themselves because I believe that most writers are writing based on a need to write. But at the same time, I feel that writers are, of course, writing for their readers, too.