Authorship quotes:

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We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship. -- George Wald
The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession. -- George Sand
There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it. -- Charles Caleb Colton
I didn't really escape that gravity until I moved 300 miles south to go to college at 18, where authorship no longer seemed something liable to induce vengeful punishment. -- David Knopfler
The lover of letters loves power too. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego. -- John Kenneth Galbraith
He who proposes to be an author should first be a student. -- John Dryden
Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear Glean after what it can. -- Philip James Bailey
Let it (what you have written) be kept back until the ninth year. [Lat., Nonumque prematur in annum.] -- Horace
Knowledge is the foundation and source of good writing. [Lat., Scibendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.] -- Horace
A man of moderate Understanding, thinks he writes divinely: A man of good Understanding, thinks he writes reasonably. -- Jean de la Bruyere
Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind. -- Edmund Burke
To write much, and to write rapidly, are empty boasts. The world desires to know what you have done, and not how you did it. -- George Henry Lewes
Authorship is, according to the spirit in which it is pursued, an infamy, a pastime, a day-labor, a handicraft, an art, a science, a virtue. -- August Wilhelm von Schlegel
He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who writes verses builds it in granite. - Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton -- Bill Vaughan
Often turn the stile [correct with care], if you expect to write anything worthy of being read twice. [Lat., Saepe stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint Scripturus.] -- Horace
He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whose book full of them? -- Martial
This letter gives me a tongue; and were I not allowed to write, I should be dumb. [Lat., Praebet mihi littera linguam: Et, si non liceat scribere, mutus ero.] -- Ovid
Whatever hath been written shall remain, Nor be erased nor written o'er again; The unwritten only still belongs to thee: Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Too indolent to bear the toil of writing; I mean of writing well; I say nothing about quantity. [Lat., Piger scribendi ferre laborem; Scribendi recte, nam ut multum nil moror.] -- Horace
The great and good do no die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens. -- Samuel Smiles
Authorship has never been with me a matter of choice. I have not done it for amusement, or for money, or for fame, or for any reason but because I could not help it. -- Harriet Martineau
The unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood, Yet only eats and drinks what you think good. -- John Dryden
Writings survive the years; it is by writings that you know Agamemnon, and those who fought for or against him. [Lat., Scripta ferunt annos; scriptis Agamemnona nosti, Et quisquis contra vel simul arma tulit.] -- Ovid
A man starts upon a sudden, takes Pen, Ink, and Paper, and without ever having had a thought of it before, resolves within himself he will write a Book; he has no Talent at Writing, but he wants fifty Guineas. -- Jean de la Bruyere
Authorship is not a trade, it is an inspiration; authorship does not keep an office, its habitation is all out under the sky, and everywhere the winds are blowing and the sun is shining and the creatures of God are free. -- Mark Twain
The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals; or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves. -- Joseph Addison
Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw more from them as wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and bones. -- Henry Ward Beecher
I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print, but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can hardly accuse myself of a personal intrusion. -- Mary Shelley
Nothing so fretful, so despicable as a Scribbler, see what I am, and what a parcel of Scoundrels I have brought about my ears, and what language I have been obliged to treat them with to deal with them in their own way; - all this comes of Authorship. -- Lord Byron
When I write, my soul sings. -- Melissa Marsh
The pen is the tongue of the mind. -- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Try to be someone upon whom nothing is lost! -- Henry James
Use lots of exclamation points. They love to be overused. -- Sark
People's interest is in the product, not in its authorship. -- Jonathan Ive
All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth. -- Michel de Montaigne
Somebody told me I'm a writer. I believed them. Now I regret it. -- Stefanos Livos
Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress truth. -- Wole Soyinka
Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress truth. -- Wole Soyinka
No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject. -- Arthur Schopenhauer
Authors who moan with praise for their editors always seem to reek slightly of the Stockholm syndrome. -- Christopher Hitchens
The calling of an author is more than just to entertain, but also to share ones experiences with the world. -- M.J. Stoddard
And people do enjoy the plays at completely different levels. And, likewise, they enjoy the authorship question... at completely different levels. -- Mark Rylance
To lead and live the life of your dream, you must arise and be in-charge of the authorship of your own destiny. -- Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
Only mothers will ever know the true struggle and sacrifice it takes to create life. Authors come in at a close second. -- R.P. Falconer
Very often human beings don't become available for the purposes of art until they have shaken off some of their dogged, self-preserving sanity. -- Christopher Morley
Don't be afraid! We won't make an author of you, while there's an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to. -- Charles Dickens
There's as much great authorship in the filmmaker community as in the literary community, and I'd love to welcome more filmmakers into the fold. -- Nina Jacobson
I have had my say, as he wished. Now the book belongs, as he points out, to the world he claims to speak for. -- Julian Darius
Who can say they saw a whole play or read a whole book? Each has their own experience, their own play, their own book -- Johnny Rich
I don't know. Sometimes I try to say what's on my mind and it comes out sounding like I ate a dictionary and I'm shitting pages. Sorry -- J. R. Moehringer
So there's a lot of people tied into believing that the traditional response to the authorship question. In terms of actors, some people get very angry about it. -- Mark Rylance
Why I love these wordsThey are mineYou cannot change that You cannot rearrange that Try as you might You cannot take away All that they mean to me -- Maddy Kobar
The out-dated imagery of sitting over a dusty typewriter staring at blank pages for years is a fallacy and probably designed to keep you from living up to your fullest potential. -- Kytka Hilmar-Jezek
Every author believes, when his first book is published, that those that acclaim it are his personal friends or impersonal peers, while its revilers can only be envious rogues and nonentities. -- Nabokov Vladimir
Begitu seorang pengarang mati, tugasnya sebagai pengarang tidak dapat diambil alih orang lain. Sebaliknya, kalau dekan, camat, atau mantri polisi mati, dalam waktu singkat akan ada orang yang dapat dan mampu menggantikannya. -- Budi Darma
Most people believe that the Creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of their books. Unfortunately, there are many books that pretend to divine authorship, and each makes incompatible claims about how we all must live. -- Sam Harris
Pada masa itu sering saya menjawab pertanyaan yang kadang-kadang diajukan kepada saya, "Mengapa Saudara menjadi pengarang?" dengan, "Karena saya tak dapat bekerja lain. Kalau saya bisa jadi importir atau eksportir, tentu saya akan menjadi importir atau eksportir. -- Ajip Rosidi
Some people have a lot of time, but no money--It's because they don't work hard enough.Some people have a lot of money, but no time--It's because they don't work smart enough.The most successful people have both. -- Bob Sharpe
I proceed with the proper subject of this discourse; namely, the further changes in scientific belief, which have occurred within my own recollection, even since the time when I first aspired to authorship, now forty- five years ago. -- Asa Gray
If there's a will, there's a way!I feel larger than LIFE--and look up to the stars who shine down on me and have become my own personal cheerleaders....as my fingers tap on my computer late into the night.. -- Donna Scrima-Black
The truth was, I yearned, in a soul-deep way, to be Sarra. To 'feel' that God was so very close, so very concerned with my particular life, so very ready to protect and to love. Always nearby. Always listening. Always leading. -- Lisa Wingate
In my first 15 or 20 years of authorship, I was almost never asked to give a speech or an interview. The written work was supposed to speak for itself, and to sell itself, sometimes even without the author's photograph on the back flap. -- John Updike
You have what I can afford to give. You are a panhandler, begging for anything, and I am the man walking briskly by, tossing a quarter or so into your paper cup. I can afford to give you this. This does not break me. -- Dave Eggers
If we enter into the kind of world that Google likes, the world that Google wants, it's a world where information is copied so much on the Internet that nobody knows where it came from anymore, so there can't be any rights of authorship. -- Jaron Lanier
From my boyhood I have had an intense and overwhelming conviction that my real vocation lay in the direction of literature. I have, however, had a most unaccountable difficulty in getting any responsible person to share my views.- Cyprian Overbeck Wells: A Literary Mosaic -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When you are acting, you are just one piece of the puzzle. You don't see how everything fits together. It feels like you have less authorship over the entire product. In directing, you take the entire picture into account, so you're challenged in a different way. -- Misha Collins
I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print, but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can hardly accuse myself of a personal intrusion. -- Mary Shelley
Just aiming a speely input device, or a Farspark chambre, or whatever you call it... a speelycaptor... at something doesn't collect what is meaningful to me. I need someone to gather it in with all their senses, mix it round in their head, and make it over into words. -- Neal Stephenson
I held out my book. It was precious to me, as were all the things I'd written; even where I despised their inadequacy there was not one I would disown. Each tore its way from my entrails. Each had shortened my life, killed me with its own special little death. -- Tanith Lee
A book can never be anything more than the impress of its author's thoughts; and the value of these will lie either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form which his thoughts take, in other words, what it is that he has thought about it. -- Arthur Schopenhauer
We do not wait for inspiration. We work because we've jolly well got to. But when all is said and done, we toil at this particular job because it's turned out to be our particular job, and in a weird sort of way I suppose we may be said to like it. -- Ngaio Marsh
Creative work is often driven by pain. It may be that if you don't have something in the back of your head driving you nuts, you may not do anything. It's not a good arrangement. If I were God, I wouldn't have done it that way.[Interview, The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 20, 2009] -- Cormac McCarthy
People's interest is in the product, not in its authorship, -- Jonathan Ive
The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
She walked about disdainfully, unwilling to be enthusiastic over monuments of uncertain authorship or date. -- E. M. Forster
I think, for me, when I direct my own work it's just an extension of the authorship. -- Adam Rapp
The idea that it is necessary to go to a university in order to become a successful writer . . . is one of those fantasies that surround authorship. -- Vera Brittain
Who left nothing of authorship untouched, and touched nothing which he did not adorn. [Lat., Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit; nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.] -- Samuel Johnson
But, inevitably, as he [Kierkegaard] approaches what we might call his Christocentric climax many readers drop off. Many scholars just leave that part of his authorship alone. -- George Pattison
If you're fortunate enough with your history, like with Men in the Cities, your work becomes so absorbed in culture that the authorship of it doesn't exist anymore. -- Robert Longo
If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with -- Ayn Rand
Evolution advances, not by a priori design, but by the selection of what works best out of whatever choices offer. We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship. -- George Wald
Yes, I learned long ago that the only satisfaction of authorship lies in finding the very few who understand what we mean. As for outside rewards, there is not one that I have ever discovered. -- Ellen Glasgow

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