“I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn't happiness.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer
Source: The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952)
“A writer who knows what he is doing isn't doing very much.”
"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
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Nelson Algren30
American novelist, short story writer 1909–1981Related quotes
“True greatness isn't so much what you do as who you are.”
Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon
Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 162
“Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.”
Thomas Berger (1952) German writer
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Other
Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper
Variant: the people you love can surprise you every day... maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it.
Source: My Sister's Keeper (2004)
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist
Scientists
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Paris Review Interview (1990)
Context: I know when it’s the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know when it’s the best I can do. I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, No. No, I’m finished. Bye. And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.
“There is no man living who isn't capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.”
Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist
