“As Jules Renard said, no matter how much care an author takes to write as few books as possible, there will be people who haven’t heard of some of them.”

— Donald Barthelme

“You Are Cordially Invited”
Flying to America: 45 More Stories (2007)

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 "As Jules Renard said, no matter how much care an author takes to write as few books as possible, there will be people w…" by Donald Barthelme?

Donald Barthelme 67

American writer, editor, and professor 1931–1989

Related quotes

“You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) German mathematician and physical scientist

As quoted in Calculus Gems (1992) by George F. Simmons

“I’m sure you’ve run into people who’ve said, “If I just had the time, I could write a book.” Everybody thinks they can write a book. And everybody’s life story could be the subject of a book — I don’t care who they are. It depends how you approach it. But writing itself, either you have it or you don’t have it. -->”

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

1970s-, The Captains, the Kings, and Taylor Caldwell (1978)

“The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 81

“Anyone can write. Some people can write a bit better than others; they're called authors. Then there are some who can write better than authors; they're called artists.”

Walter Moers (1957) German comic creator and author

“When Thatcher ran for prime minister she said — remember this, this is the Iron Lady — she said, "The British national health care system is safe in my hands." She wasn't going to take on health care, because she knew once you have people getting free health care from the government, you can't take it away from them. And the reason is because most people don't get sick, and so free health care is just that, free health care, until you get sick. Then, if you get sick and you don't get health care, you die and you don't vote. It's actually a pretty clever system. Take care of the people who can vote and people who can’t vote, get rid of them as quickly as possible by not giving them care so they can’t vote against you. That's how it works.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Young Americans for Freedom event, Reagan Ranch, , quoted in

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be finished. No matter how much I write, there will always be something I should’ve said.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Fourth Comings

“No author, I think, is deserving of much censure for vanity if, taking down one of his ten-year-old books, he exclaims: "Great heavens, did I write as well as that then?" for the implication always is that one does not write any longer so well and few are so envious as to censure the complacencies of an extinct volcano.”

Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939) English writer and publisher

Dedicatory letter to Stella Ford http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/fmf/gsdl.htm (1927-01-09) in The Good Soldier, second edition.

“The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people who can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.”

Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) British journalist, businessman, and essayist

[Morgan, Forrest, Shakespeare—the Man, published in the Prospective Review, July 1853, The works of Walter Bagehot, vol. 1, 1891, Hartford, Connecticut, Travelers Insurance Company, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064786716;view=1up;seq=373, 265–266 of 255–302]
Shakespeare—the Man (1853)

“The eleven volumes of this book are to be burned after they are read. There are some people in this book who are still alive and this book may anger them, so make sure the book is burned. Tsunetomo said this repeatedly.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)

“A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.”

Aldous Huxley book Point Counter Point

Variant: A bad book is as much of a labour to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.
Source: Point Counter Point

“As Jules Renard said, no matter how much care an author takes to write as few books as possible, there will be people who haven’t heard of some of them.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Donald Barthelme 67

Related quotes

Related topics