Source: The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952)
“A writer who knows what he is doing isn't doing very much.”
Nelson Algren (1909–1981) American novelist, short story writer
"he once said", quoted by Richard Flanagan, 2005. (Also quoted as: "Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.")
Nonfiction works
Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People
Variant: It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People
“Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.”
Thomas Berger (1952) German writer
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer
"Knowing What's Nice", an essay from In These Times (2003)
Various interviews
William Golding (1911–1993) British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate
As quoted in Novelists in Interview (1985) edited by John Haffenden
“Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession.”
Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction
It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Seymour: An Introduction (1959)
“Happy children do not seem to grow up to be writers.”
Piers Anthony (1934) English-American writer in the science fiction and fantasy genres
