“If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.”

—  Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

F 1
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writ…" by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg?
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg137
German scientist, satirist 1742–1799

Related quotes

Philip Pullman photo

“Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if they open it and read it, they don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read.”

Philip Pullman book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ3VcbAfd4w <br class="br">The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (2010)

“One receives the impression from his writings that he made it his plan to read any book whatever that no one else can bear to read.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Kim Addonizio photo

“Maybe you're one of those people who writes poems, but rarely reads them. Let me put this as delicately as I can: If you don't read, your writing is going to suck.”

Kim Addonizio (1954) Poet, novelist

Source: Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within

Clive Staples Lewis photo

“I wrote the books I should have liked to read. That's always been my reason for writing. People won't write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

As quoted in C.S. Lewis (1963), by Roger Lancelyn Green, p. 9

Darren Shan photo

“Meddling, smug, stupid little…"
"She likes me! They always play hard to get when they like me!"
"No. You do not understand. I could not have done it because I can not read or write.”

Darren Shan Allies of the Night

Source: Allies of the Night

Samuel Beckett photo

“I do not feel like spending the rest of my life writing books that no one will read. It is not as though I wanted to write them.”

Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish novelist, playwright, and poet

The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929–1940 (2009), p. 362
Context: I think the next little bit of excitement is flying. I hope I am not too old to take it up seriously, nor too stupid about machines to qualify as a commercial pilot. I do not feel like spending the rest of my life writing books that no one will read. It is not as though I wanted to write them.

Ovid photo

“or that writing a poem you can read to no one
is like dancing in the dark.”

Ovid (-43–17 BC) Roman poet

Source: The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters

“When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Mortimer J. Adler photo

“Unlike many of my contemporaries, I never write books for my fellow professors to read. I have no interest in the academic audience at all. I'm interested in Joe Doakes. A general audience can read any book I write – and they do.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: F.N. D&#x27;Alession. &quot; Philosopher, reformer Mortimer Adler, father of &#x27;Great Books&#x27; program, dies at 98 http://lubbockonline.com/stories/062901/upd_075-4286.shtml#.VVHE0_ntmko.&quot; at lubbockonline.com, June 29, 2001.

Dorothy L. Sayers photo

“The one thing which seems to me quite impossible is to take into consideration the kind of book one is expected to write; surely one can only write the book that is there to be written.

(, 8 September 1935)”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1, 1899-1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist

Related topics