“Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say.
Of course those who write short books have even less to say.”

“The only book that is worth writing is the one we don’t have the courage or strength to write. The book that hurts us (we who are writing), that makes us tremble, redden, bleed”

Hélène Cixous (1937) French philosopher and writer

“Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

“"Short-term inequality remains a problem," writes [right-wing scholar Dinesh] D'Souza… "but is it a problem we can live with?" …After searching his soul for a few seconds, he apparently concludes that we can live with it. Of course, inequality always feels like less of a problem to those who don't live in corrugated shacks, which is why sales of D'Souza's book have probably been brisker in Manhattan than in, say, Addis Ababa or Khartoum.”

Linda McQuaig (1951) journalist and author

“It is a melancholy illusion of those who write books and articles that the printed word survives. Alas, it rarely does.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

“Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

“A book comes and says, 'Write me.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

“Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

“Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

“I'm not sure I'd want to pick the brain of any author. Some writers have a lot to say about what they write and why they write it. Others don't. I've met a lot of writers who have an awful lot to say in the bar, but whose books seem curiously empty.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer