Good Authors Quotes:

You don't expect me to know what to say about a play when I don't know who the author is, do you? . . . If it's by a good author, it's a good play, naturally. That stands to reason.

- George Bernard Shaw

topic: Play, Reason, Good Authors

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

- Herman Melville

topic: Book, Writing, Produce, Writing Advice, Writing Short

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

- Gilbert K. Chesterton

topic: Hero, Book, Reading, Novel Writing, Writing Advice

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything good.

- William Faulkner

topic: Inspiring, Writing, May, Inspiration And Creativity, Inspiration To Write

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

- Samuel Johnson

source: Statement on April 14, 1775. "Life of Samuel Johnson". Book by James Boswell. Volume II, 1791.

topic: Wisdom, Writing, Procrastination, Swedish, Inspiration To Write

If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory!

- Mark Twain

topic: Memories, Needs, Good Memories, Way In Life, Being Truthful

What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers.

- Logan Pearsall Smith

source: All Trivia (1933) "Afterthoughts" pt. 5

topic: Inspirational, Book, Writing, Creative Writing, Good Authors

The good author is he who contemplates without marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul amongst criticisms.

- Joseph Conrad

source: Joseph Conrad (2005). “A Personal Record: Some Reminiscences”, p.109, Cosimo, Inc.

topic: Adventure, Joy, Soul, Good Authors

Good authors mature over time: it does take awhile. Travel abroad and learn to live in other cultures. That's one of the things about teaching abroad.

- Richard K. Morgan

topic: Teaching, Other Cultures, Doe, Good Authors

Let us hope that good authors who are bad Christians will find salvation through the books they write.

- Julien Green

source: Julien Green (1964). “Diary, 1928-1957”, London, Collins

topic: Christian, Book, Writing, Good Authors

I think I have done well, if I have acquired a new word from a good author; and my business with him is to find my own, though itwere only to melt him down into an epithet or an image for daily use.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.172, Graphic Arts Books

topic: Book, Reading, Thinking, Epithet, Good Authors

A good author, and one who writes carefully, often discovers that the expression of which he has been in search without being able to discover it, and which he has at last found, is that which was the most simple, the most natural, and which seems as if it ought to have presented itself at once, without effort, to the mind.

- Jean de la Bruyere

topic: Writing, Simple, Expression, Good Authors

There are so many good authors; there's no shortage of them.

- Jeanne Calment

topic: Shortage, Good Authors

Fundamentally a good author has his or her own sense of style. There is a natural, deep voice, and that voice is present from the first draft of a manuscript. When he or she elaborates on the initial manuscript, it continues to strengthen and simplify that natural, deep voice.

- Kenzaburo Oe

source: "Kenzaburo Oe, The Art of Fiction No. 195". Interviewed with Sarah Fay, www.theparisreview.org. Winter 2007.

topic: Voice, Style, Firsts, Good Authors

For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrowers, among good authors is accounted Plagiarè.

- John Milton

topic: Kind, Plagiarism, Borrowing, Borrowers, Good Authors

People know that I am a very good author. But they would rather read what I have to say about the next election.

- Tatyana Tolstaya

topic: People, Next, Election, Good Authors

My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director.

- Cole Porter

source: 1955 Interview, 8 Feb.

topic: Inspiration, Directors, Telephones, Four Letter Words, Good Authors

There is bad in all good authors: what a pity the converse isn't true!

- Philip Larkin

topic: Writing, Pity, Good Authors

Good authors, too, who once knew better words now only use four-letter words writing prose... anything goes.

- Cole Porter

source: "Anything Goes" (song) (1934)

topic: Writing, Anything Goes, Use, Profanity, People Changing

I guess what inspires me most is the desire to draw out feelings that feel best expressed on the written page by really good authors, and I'm not a really good author. I feel like my job as a filmmaker is to eff the ineffable, to take feelings that only poets could describe with words and try to project them on the screen for viewers to feel. I don't think I've succeeded once but in the act of trying I've come up with all these other results which sometimes intrigue me.

- Guy Maddin

source: Source: thequietus.com

topic: Jobs, Thinking, Inspire, Good Authors