For a dyed-in-the-wool author, nothing is as dead as a book once it is written. She is rather like a cat whose kittens have grown up.
Rumer Godden

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.
Arthur Schopenhauer

For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words.
Ken Follett

Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted.
Robert Benchley

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?
Philip Gilbert Hamerton

He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
Thomas Paine

Hey, over here! Have your picture taken with a reclusive author! Today only, we'll throw in a free autograph! But wait, there's more!
Thomas Pynchon

How many authors are there among writers? Author means originator.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

I am sure that no traveler seeing things through author spectacles can see them as they are.
Harriet Martineau

I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can't be like any other author's really.
Paul Kane

I consider myself an inventor, entrepreneur, and author.
Ray Kurzweil

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.
Dick Bruna

I don't think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films.
Paul Auster

I don't think the author should make the reader do that much work to remember who somebody is.
Kevin J. Anderson

I hate the actor and audience business. An author should be in among the crowd, kicking their shins or cheering them on to some mischief or merriment.
David Herbert Lawrence

I have been told by hospital authorities that more copies of my works are left behind by departing patients than those of any other author.
Robert Benchley

I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author's political views.
Edith Wharton

I have no intention of becoming a shorthand author.
Isaac Pitman

I have no problem selling books to media franchises and we do it all the time. The author must understand that he/she is a writer for hire and has no control over copyright or over editorial changes made to the text.
Richard Curtis

I have relaxed into my persona as an author, although I used to fight that.
David Guterson