John Braine quotes:

Writing's not always a pleasure to me, but if I'm not writing every other pleasure loses its savour.

There isn't, unfortunately, any way of discovering whether you can write a publishable novel except by writing it.

To be shockingly original with your first novel, you don't have to discover a new technique: Simply write about people as they are and not as the predominantly liberal and humanist literary establishment believes that they ought to be.

Solitude and quiet are highly desirable, but the lack of them is no barrier to writing... The will to work builds all the seclusion that one needs.

It isn't that inspiration doesn't exist, but it comes only with writing.

Being a writer in a library is rather like being a eunuch in a harem.

I've no desire to be ill-dressed; but I hate the feeling that I daren't be ill-dressed if I want to.