Good Writer Quotes

A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing. — Garrison Keillor

Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. — Anne Lamott

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment. — Josh Billings

The writer of good will carries a lamp to illuminate the dark corners. — Isabel Allende

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

Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language. — Walter Savage Landor

You are not your poetry. Your self-esteem shouldn't depend on whether you publish, or whether some editor or writer you admire thinks you're any good. — Dorianne Laux

Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications. — Raymond Carver

I'm a good person but a shitty writer. You're a shitty person but a good writer. We'd make a good team. — John Green

I learned I'm not a science writer. I'm not very good at describing how something is happening. I try to describe "So What?" — David Brooks

I'm purely a popular writer, with no axe to grind apart from writing a good read' for entertainment and relaxation. — Mary Howard

I'm a good scholar when it comes to reading but a blotting kind of writer when you give me a pen. — John Millington Synge

I only sound intelligent when there's a good script writer around. — Christian Bale

I always assume that a good book is more intelligent than its author. It can say things that the writer isn't aware of. — Umberto Eco

I am not a writer, but I have been told I write good emails. — Isabel Gillies

I really think that as good of a job as you do as a writer, you're absolutely indebted to the actors that have to deliver that material. — Carlton Cuse

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.
— Carlos Fuentes

Both types of books - fiction and nonfiction - are a search for story. As a writer and a reader, there's nothing I crave more than a good story! — Susan Campbell Bartoletti

For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline. — Vikram Seth

My parents are both really, really funny, and my little sister is a really good painter, and my other sister is a really good writer. — Michael Cera

There's a good reason I am a writer. I'm completely useless at anything else. — Derek Haines

When I sit down to write, I don't have any real goals except to follow one good sentence with another ... I'm not the kind of writer who has a map. — Melissa Bank

I would like it to be said that I was a good writer of detective and thriller stories. — Agatha Christie

If you are a good writer - and I think I am - you are able to handle any kind of group and imagine their lives. — Earl Hamner Jr.

There is no one like you on this planet. Not everyone may have the gift of being a good writer, but each one of us has a story to tell. — K.J. Kilton

The same tools that make any writer good, plus a cheerful willingness to suspend belief. — Fred Saberhagen

The best fame is a writer's fame. It's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough to get you interrupted when you eat. — Fran Lebowitz

I'm a competent novelist. I'm getting better. But I'm a really good short story writer. — Tim Pratt

Fabulous lover, excellent decorator - rotten writer? Nobody can be good at everything, and two out of three ain't bad. — Rupert Smith

In order to be a good writer, you've got to be a bad boss. Self-discipline and stamina are the two major arms in a writer's arsenal. — Leon Uris

I'm not a very good writer. I'm working at it. — Henry Rollins

A good writer writes with a camera, not a pen. — Robert Newton Peck

Sometimes I get jealous when I'm reading a great book by a younger writer. But 'White Tiger' is so good, I almost forgot to hate Aravind Adiga. — David Benioff

I'd hire the devil himself as a writer if he gave me a good story ... — Samuel Goldwyn

While I was in college becoming a good Catholic I was also becoming a writer - one haunted by Catholicism. — Julianna Baggott

It's always great when you want scientific fact to get a really good science fiction writer to talk to you about it. — Robin Williams

Van Houten, I'm a good person but a shitty writer. you're a shitty person but a good writer. — John Green

Part of being a fiction writer is being able to imagine how someone else is thinking and feeling. I think I've always been good at that. — Andrew Clements

A good writer is one that can see the goodness in others and helps them to be better. — Debasish Mridha

Most people do a good deal of whatever they do motivated by love. For me, few stories are truly complete without it. — Sara Sheridan

It's possible to do both as a writer - to engage and have a family and all that good stuff - and I chose not to for the sake of the career. — Donald Miller

I'm not a good photographer, not a good writer. I'm a pretty regular person whose insecurity is so pervasive that it makes me always feel vulnerable. — Sally Mann

You have to be an extremely good reader to appreciate what a good writer is. There are some people who are completely insensitive to good writing. — Robert Caro

A good writer is a magician; she unfolds the dark secrets of mind. — Debasish Mridha

I suppose I'm most influenced by any good, commercial writer. I learn from everyone. — Nicholas Sparks

It's true that we, writers, write (create) books, but eventually, a good book gives birth to a good, established writer. — Tarang Sinha

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

Any hack can safely rail away at foreign powers beyond the sea; but a good writer is a critic of the society he lives in. — Edward Abbey

Other writers definitely influence my writing. What encourages me and inspires me is when I read a good book. It makes me want to be a better writer. — Kimberly Willis Holt

A good writer is an excellent reader. — Cyci Cade

I'm a writer and writers either have good memories or nothing at all. — Maya Angelou

I had no ambition to be a writer because the books I read were too good, my standards were too high. — Haruki Murakami

A great writer has all 4 - but you can still be a good writer with only 1 and 2. — Susan Sontag

I'm such a coward that unless I get a good writer, I don't want to make a picture. — Howard Hawks

Your first obligation as a writer is to tell the truth and to tell a good story. — Lena Waithe

I'm a writer. I write because I don't talk so good. — Lionel Fisher

A good writer always works at the impossible. — John Steinbeck

Thinking is a great joy for a good writer and a great torture for the bad one! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

An artist who makes pictures that look good but express nothing is like a writer whose words sound good but have no meaning. — Gerald Brommer

When a good writer is having fun, the audience is almost always having fun too. — Stephen King

I'm not a very good writer. But I'm a HELLUVA re-writer. — Laini Giles

In addition to comedy, I'm a writer. I write checks. They're not very good. — Wendy Liebman

I'm a singer, a writer and an actress - when I find something that I feel good enough about doing. — Dolly Parton

A good writer must be like the birds of a dark forest; you can't see them, but you can hear their mysterious and wise voices! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

A good writer wants from us - or has no right to ask more than - intelligence, good faith and time. — John Jeremiah Sullivan

A good TV writer needs all the same tricks a good novelist has. — Dean Bakopoulos

American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither. — Gore Vidal

Someone who does not write books, who thinks a lot, and who lives in unsatisfying society will usually be a good letter- writer. — Friedrich Nietzsche

A good writer can fake being an expert in anything - even men's underwear. — Greg Dybec

I knew I wasn't that good a writer, and all I could remember was that I could draw. I'm better at drawing than I am at writing. — Claes Oldenburg

Insofar as I'm good at directing, it's because I've become a writer. — David Hare

The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The reviewer's view knew not of the true part of the writer's view, so good or bad, do not brew, and let them through to another part of you. — Mark Donnelly

But I wouldn't recommend writing. You can be a successful writer and never meet another soul. I'm not sure that's a good thing. — J.G. Ballard

A bench in the street can be a good writer because all kind of material comes onto it like a heavy rain! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

I will say that the prison regime is rather a good one for a writer because you have plenty of time to write. — Mary Archer

Well, I'm a slow writer. For me, a good day is a page, maybe a page and a half. I'd love to be more efficient, but I am not. — Charles Frazier

All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another. — Francine Prose

Young or old, good or bad, I don't think anything dies as slow and as hard as a writer. — Charles Bukowski

Doing interesting things and then writing about them is the best way to become a good writer. — Jean Craighead George

There's one good kind of writer - a dead one. — James T. Farrell

A real and admirable writer is the one who can write good books but can take criticisms better. — Nicholaa Spencer

I'll never be a good writer, and no chance of being a good actor. — Matthew Vaughn

Getting away from being 'a good girl' is important because it's impossible to be a 'good girl' and a writer at the same time. — Lynne Sharon Schwartz

A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story. — Lynn Abbey

No matter how big a name you are, how many big series you've been in or how good looking you are, in the end, all actors are secondary to the writer. — Christopher Eccleston

There is no such thing as a good writer and a bad liar. — Amy Bloom

A good creative-writing teacher can save a good writer a lot of time. — Richard Hugo

No matter how good it is, your book will not sell itself. — Elinor Florence

Raymond Carver is good. I think he'll be appreciated more and more. He's an easy writer to imitate. — Leslie Fiedler

The hardest thing in the world for a writer is to amass a readership. So many good books come out, and so many good books disappear. — Patrick DeWitt

(On her son) I've met writer's block. He is short, diapered and keeps unplugging my laptop. Good news: he can be conquered with a bottle and a nap. — Cyrese Covelli

Being a good writer doesn't make you a good reporter, it takes hustle. — David

My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh. — V.S. Naipaul

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter. — James A. Michener

Why do I write? It's not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I'm very happy with the way I write. I think I do it good. But I've never really considered myself a writer. — Quentin Tarantino

I became a good writer when I saw the age of forty coming at me — Pat Mora

A photographer is like a writer ... you're writing with your lens so make sure you tell a good story. — Habib Umar Bin Hafiz

If you want to be a good writer, be the best writer in the world. That's what I've done. — Ray Bradbury