Top 1200 Great Author Quotes & Sayings - Page 20

The object of the novelist is to keep the reader entirely oblivious of the fact that the author exists - even of the fact he is reading a book.

An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.

That's Tommy, this great producer who comes in contact with people and must have a mental library of personnel who are great for this and great for that, and he brought this whole group of musicians to the project that I'd never worked with before.

To make a book is as much a trade as to make a clock; something more than intelligence is required to become an author.

Our contention has always been that Shakespeare is our greatest living author. If he can survive a season on Broadway, he must be.

Therefore, all my adult life, since I began my life as an author, or as a teacher, I always try to listen to the victim.

A presentation copy, reader,-if haply you are yet innocent of such favours-is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the author.

The three elements of creativity are thus: loving, knowing, and doing - or heart, mind, and hands - or, as Zen Buddhist teaching has it; great faith, great question, and great courage.

I did about 2000 covers altogether, for all sorts of books - from Shakespeare to James Bond - and I always had the idea that I must give 100%, no matter who the author was.

After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly difficult for his publishers to get out a new book by him each year.

Being an author, is being a dictator. (in a good way)

I had a great job and I lost it, but I'm doing great now, I have a great family, my daughters all live with me. Did I have a setback? Absolutely, but I don't look at it like a ruined my life.

Pity the man who has a favorite restaurant, but not a favorite author.

An absolute joy to read - it stimulates and engages. Westney is asking new questions not addressed elsewhere . . . and you will be drawn in by the author's inviting, yet quietly compelling style.

I'm most impressed by the Russian writers, so I love reading the works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Another author who has informed the way I think is the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal.

Everytime we say that god is the author of some phenomenon, that signifies that we are ignorant of how such a phenomenon was caused by the forces of nature.

For example, an author whose parents fled a war but he himself was born in the country where they fled to, and that is where he went to school and college before he wrote his first book of poetry in the language of this country - he should be labeled as: "Author whose parents fled a war but he himself was born in the country where they fled to, and that is where he went to school and college before he wrote his first book of poetry in the language of this country."

Milla Jovovich introduced me to [anthropologist and author of the Don Juan series of books involving shamanic peyote rituals] Carlos Castaneda because I was all into the hallucinogens for a minute.

We can never know that a piece of writing is bad unless we have begun by trying to read it as if it was very good and ended by discovering that we were paying the author an undeserved compliment.

I'm very comfortable with tweeting, I have a very active author Facebook page, I Skype book clubs all over the world.

Few books are more thrilling than certain confessions, but they must be honest, and the author must have something to confess.

I have always wondered why the movie industry was so firmly persuaded that the original author could be of no possible help in the case of a remake or any other change in a work.

I've never bought this idea of taking a therapeutic distance. If I see a student or house staff cry, I take great faith in that. That's a great person; they're going to be a great doctor.

Coming from art school, I had a great sense of style - as did The Beatles and the Stones - and I enjoyed projecting that. Image, attitude, great music and great lyrics - that was the '60s.

Phil Neville could be on the road to one day, maybe, becoming the England manager. I know him closely. He was a great captain, a great leader. He's had great experience.

Out of respect to writers, you have to read the book in the way in which the author visualised it going out into the world.

My favorite aspect of being an author has always been visiting different communities and meeting my readers face to face.

The attitude of, I will never self-publish, coming from any author, indicates that they have never been in a position where it is their only option.

Your source material is the people you know, not those you don't know, but every character is an extension of the author's own personality.

Numerous are the posthumous museums and memorials devoted exclusively to one artist, architect or author and designed to preserve or artificially reconstruct the namesake's original working or living conditions.

Less than 5% of cancers are related to genes. 95% are influenced by your lifestyle. You are the author of your biological story.

A lot of school-going children are familiar with my writing. I am basically very much a children books author.

An author who sets about to depict events of the past that have run their course is suspected of wishing to avoid the problems of the present day, of being, in other words, a reactionary.

Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something.

An orator or author is never successful till he has learned to make his words smaller than his ideas.

The dwarfed trees of the Chinese and Japanese have been noticed by every author who has written upon these countries, and all have attempted to give some description of the method by which the effect is produced.

No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published.

If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research.

There is something fascinatingly awkward about an author photo. I'm drawn to those glossy shots in the back of books, mostly because the subjects never look happy to be there.

I am happy because I am no longer an author.

A story isn't a charcoal sketch, where every stroke lies on the surface to be seen. It's an oil painting, filled with layers that the author must uncover so carefully to show its beauty.

Can an author with reason complain that he is cramped and shackled if he is not at liberty to publish blasphemy, bawdry, or sedition?; all of which are equally prohibited in the freest governments, if they are wise and well-regulated ones.

Writing a song is much like being an author. Yes, we all have tools to write (everyone has a brain I hope!), but that doesn't all of a sudden make us best selling authors.

Being a Georgia author is a rather specious dignity, on the same order as, for the pig, being a Talmadge ham.

And the people listened, and their faces were quiet with listening. The story tellers, gathering attention into their tales, spoke in great rhythms, spoke in great words because the tales were great, and the listeners became great through them.

I know that one is able to win people far more by the spoken that by the written word, and that every great movement on this globe owes its rise to the great speakers and not to the great writers.

The attitude of, 'I will never self-publish,' coming from any author, indicates that they have never been in a position where it is their only option.

An author never has a vacation. He's a walking sponge, sopping up impressions till he's saturated, then going to his desk and squeezing them out on paper.

The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, said an eminent scholar, have God for their Author, the Salvation of mankind for their end, and Truth without any mixture of error for their matter.

Prejudice is the sole author of infamies: how many acts are so qualified by an opinion forged out of naught but prejudice!

I've found that the most engaging and satisfying author events I've done are with other people, where the conversation is spontaneous. I think that is by far the better way to introduce and promote a book.

I'm the author of several books, including children's books.

Stephen King has inspired me with his humor and honesty, and his admonition that the author's job is to tell the truth.

The author can always delve into his own personality and find aspects of himself with which he can dress his characters.

The collaboration really begins once the rehearsal starts. This is when the actor takes his place, because he becomes the one who is going to bring the words of the author off the page.

You can do whatever you want. If you want to be a singer, author, book writer, basketball player, you just have to put the time in.

Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain? The ability to suffer is a small matter: in that line, weak women and even slaves often attain masterliness. But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of it that is great, that belongs to greatness.

'Lonesome Dove' by Larry McMurtry and 'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver have stuck with me throughout my life, and I think that says a lot about an author's writing.

I have a huge author crush on Stephen King. Have never met him. Would probably embarrass myself. But it would be worth it.

Obviously there's a lot more to a TV show than just a book... I think adaptations are a bit tricky for the screenwriters because they're worried about upsetting the author.