“Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”

—  Walter Benjamin

Source: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books w…" by Walter Benjamin?
Walter Benjamin photo
Walter Benjamin 70
German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892… 1892–1940

Related quotes

“The relationship between reader and writer in fiction is steeped in vulnerabilities. It really does require trust and faith because some books have the power to transform people. You feel like you can never go back, look at the world in the same way again. And that grand ambition is what I hope to do with my books because at the heart of my writing is a passion for telling stories of the oppressed, the marginalized, and the misunderstood.”

Randa Abdel-Fattah (1979) contemporary Australian writer of novels for young adults

On being a writer in “Both Freedom and Constraint: An Interview with Randa Abdel-Fattah” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/both-freedom-and-constraint-an-interview-with in Words Without Borders (May 2015)

Brandon Sanderson photo

“Authors write books for one, and only one, reason: because we like to torture people.”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Stephen King photo

“This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“No one who writes a good book is really dead.”

Walter Moers (1957) German comic creator and author

“There are all kinds of writers. The best writers write children's books.”

Richard Scarry (1919–1994) author and illustrator from the United States

Source: Busy, Busy Town

“This is a book by a writer who does some teaching, not a book by a teacher who does some writing, and one of the satisfactions of the craft is that there's always something new to learn.”

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

Introduction, p. viii.
On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976)

Rachel Carson photo

“If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91
Context: The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities. If they are not there, science cannot create them. If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.

Julia Stiles photo

“I really like Shakespeare a lot. The characters that he writes for females, I think, are really great and a lot more compelling than what modern writers write, which is weird because they didn't have actresses then.”

Julia Stiles (1981) American actress

Daily News, April 12, 1999.

Thomas Wolfe photo

“The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.”

Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) American writer

“Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.”

Thomas Berger (1952) German writer

Related topics