“The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Leo Rosten11

American writer 1908–1997

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“I'm a writer and this is what I love to do. There's no reason that just because you're a celebrity, you can't write.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Reuters News Agency (October 10, 2005)
2007, 2008

“There's only one good reason to be a writer-we can't help it! We'd all like to be rich, famous and successful, but if those are our goals, we're off on a wrong foot… I just wanted to earn enough money so I could work at home on my writing.”

Phyllis A. Whitney (1903–2008) American writer

“What I adore is supreme professionalism. I’m bored by writers who can write only when it’s raining.”

Noel Coward (1899–1973) English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer

“That's bullshit. You're being deliberately unpleasant. I suppose you can't help yourself, can you?”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

To then Shadow minister for Health Nicola Roxon after a debate before the Nation Press Gallery, subsequently quoted in http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/abbotts-day-from-hell/2007/10/31/1193618926551.html "Abbotts Day From Hell", Sydney Morning Herald, October 31, 2007
2007

“I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.”

Peter de Vries (1910–1993) American editor and novelist

“Sometimes, you just can't help yourself but to learn quickly when being taught by the opposite gender.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“It is perfectly possible to be a professional director or a professional writer and not to be an artist: merely a sort of executor of other people's ideas.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 188

“We really need to think quite pragmatically about whether intellectual property is helping or hurting, and if you can't show it's going to help, then there is no reason to issue this government-backed monopoly.”

Lawrence Lessig (1961) American academic, political activist.

"Code + Law: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig" at O'Reilly P2P (29 January 2001)(29 January 2001)
Context: Our problem is that lawyers have taught us that there is only one kind of economic market for innovation out there and it is this kind of isolated inventor who comes up with an idea and then needs to be protected. That is a good picture of maybe what pharmaceutical industry does. It's a bad picture of what goes on, for example, in the context of software development, in particular. In the context of software development, where you have sequential and complementary developments, patents create an extraordinarily damaging influence on innovation and on the process of developing and bringing new ideas to market. So the particular mistake that lawyers have compounded is the unwillingness to discriminate among different kinds of innovation.
We really need to think quite pragmatically about whether intellectual property is helping or hurting, and if you can't show it's going to help, then there is no reason to issue this government-backed monopoly.

“How I began to write is different than how I became a writer. They are two different things. Many people write but they do not become writers. To become a writer is a job. It involves planning and it affects all parts of your life. Even what you eat—being a writer means not eating food with too much rich sauce to avoid taking a long afternoon nap! It’s like being a professional athlete. And a writer must choose between being a sprinter who writes a book, and being a writer who creates an oeuvre. If you want to create an oeuvre, you have to be careful not to put all your energy into the first book. You have to have a vision for the long term...”

Dany Laferrière (1953) Haitian Canadian novelist and journalist

On how he became a writer in “An Interview with Dany Laferrière” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/an-interview-with-dany-laferriere-jessie-chaffee (WWB Daily, 2016)

“An old maxim says that a professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

A Gift of Wings (1974)
Source: https://books.google.de/books?id=InUpHgnif58C&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=An+old+maxim+says+that+a+professional+writer+is+an+amateur+who+didn%27t+quit&source=bl&ots=RpDceaKvsx&sig=ACfU3U0n2qLBUs3E_5CDTfLDvLPmk3tB7A&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiB16L5_5jyAhWlgf0HHeQyD2oQ6AF6BAgREAM#v=onepage&q=An%20old%20maxim%20says%20that%20a%20professional%20writer%20is%20an%20amateur%20who%20didn't%20quit&f=false A Gift of Wings

“The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.”

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Leo Rosten11

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