The first job of a writer is to be honest.
Irvine Welsh

Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.
J. G. Ballard

I'm a writer and this is what I love to do.
Gloria Estefan

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.
John Le Carre

A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.
John Le Carre

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

To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.
Andre Gide

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.
Graham Greene

I didn't want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that's a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I'm proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.
Haruki Murakami

Letters have to pass two tests before they can be classed as good: they must express the personality both of the writer and of the recipient.
E. M. Forster

Only a writer who has the sense of evil can make goodness readable.
E. M. Forster

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
W. Somerset Maugham

It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
W. Somerset Maugham

The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
W. Somerset Maugham

An incinerator is a writer's best friend.
Thornton Wilder

One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.
Wole Soyinka

Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.
George Lucas

To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent. A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.
Willa Cather

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.
Willa Cather

Every writer I know has trouble writing.
Joseph Heller