James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author
Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 8 (p. 171)
“Very few writers of distinction in fact were outstanding as undergraduates.”
Address at Mount Holyoke College (2006)
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Joyce Carol Oates89
American author 1938Related quotes
Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist
1988 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1988.html <br class="br">Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)
“The fact is, very few men are right in everything.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
The Great Infidels (1881)
Renata Adler (1938) American author, journalist and film critic
Source: Speedboat
Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist
"Howe's Complaint" (1973), p. 15
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)
Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) British novelist and philosopher
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Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer
The Paris Review interview
Context: Many writers write a great deal, but very few write more than a very little of the real thing. So most writing must be displaced activity. When cockerels confront each other and daren’t fight, they busily start pecking imaginary grains off to the side. That’s displaced activity. Much of what we do at any level is a bit like that, I fancy. But hard to know which is which. On the other hand, the machinery has to be kept running. The big problem for those who write verse is keeping the machine running without simply exercising evasion of the real confrontation. If Ulanova, the ballerina, missed one day of practice, she couldn’t get back to peak fitness without a week of hard work. Dickens said the same about his writing—if he missed a day he needed a week of hard slog to get back into the flow.
“There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer – reading is so much a part of it.”
Dermot Healy (1947–2014) Irish writer
Small talk: Dermot Healy, 2011
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
Source: A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition
Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer
(25 November 2006)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2004
Context: No matter what you may have heard elsewhere or however you may have romanticized the life of working writers, know this: it is, with very, very few exceptions, a brutal, ugly, and unrelentingly difficult existence. It is a grind, no matter how much you may love to write or feel driven to tell stories. Personal demons aside, you will encounter at almost every turn no shortage of idiots and shitheels upon whom you must depend to get your work to readers. Occasionally, there will be a fortunate aberration: a wonderful, brilliant editor, or a copyeditor who doesn't try to express herhimitself vicariously by attempting to rewrite your work, or an agent who busts hisherits ass for you. You may even be so fortunate as to encounter a publisher who cares more about herhisits authors than the bottom line. Those things do happen. But don't ever fucking count on it. If you come to this life, and if you "make it" and can actually eek out some sort of living writing, you will likely learn these things for yourselves. Plenty of people will tell you I'm full of shit on this account. And you are certainly free to listen to whomever you please. But after fourteen years as a full-time writer, during which time I have had great successes and profound failures, seen modest fortune and considerable poverty and everything in-between, been appreciated and reviled, awarded and ignored, helped and hindered — one thing remains true. It's a tough row to hoe, as my Grandfather Ramey would have said. And you do yourself and all working authors a disservice if you dare believe otherwise.