“Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 4, Style, p. 20.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe." by William Zinsser?
William Zinsser photo
William Zinsser 30
writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor 1922–2015

Related quotes

Nelson Algren photo

“Thinking of Melville, thinking of Poe, thinking of Mark Twain and Vachel Lindsay, thinking of Jack London and Tom Wolfe, one begins to feel there is almost no way of becoming a creative writer in America without being a loser.”

Nelson Algren (1909–1981) American novelist, short story writer

"Algren at the height of his success" in 1950, quoted by Richard Flanagan, 2005.
Nonfiction works

Robert Jordan photo
Vladimir Nabokov photo
Rudyard Kipling photo

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”

The Law of the Jungle, Stanzas 1 and 2.
The Second Jungle Book (1895)
Source: The Jungle Book
Context: p>Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the Law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.</p

Eoin Colfer photo

“What's that supposed to mean? A wolf's head on a stick. Big wolf barbecue tonight? Bring your own wolf?”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Lost Colony

Farley Mowat photo

“Tom always did anger well. Hid it well, but showed it even better”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: The Piper's Son

Bruce Springsteen photo

“Well the highway is alive tonight,
But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes.
I’m sittin’ down here in the campfire light
Searchin’ for the ghost of Tom Joad.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"The Ghost of Tom Joad"
Song lyrics, The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)

Aesop photo

“The boy cried "Wolf, wolf!" and the villagers came out to help him.”

Aesop (-620–-564 BC) ancient Greek storyteller

The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf.

Related topics