Quotes about writer (1935 quotes, page 20)

“In as much as people are fascinated by stories, we writers have a duty to reflect issues that need attention in society.”

Suraj Sani (1996) Nigerian writer, Spoken word artist

Interview (12-12-2020), Vanguard Nigeria https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/12/how-my-writings-would-contribute-to-the-fight-against-terrorism-suraj-sani/

People

“I always end up working with writers with a twisted sense of humour and a fine sense of warped violence. And that's right up my strasse.”

Steve Dillon (1962–2016) British comic artist

Judge Dredd Interview (2011)

Sense

“As writers we have to walk in the world in touch with that present, alert part of ourselves, that animal sense part that looks, sees, and notices - street signs, corners, fire hydrants, newspaper stands.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Be an animal". p.91
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

World , Animals , Sense , Parting

“Writers move with grace in and out of many worlds.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Writers have good figures". p.56
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

World

“In a rainstorm, everyone quickly runs down the street with umbrellas, raincoats, newspapers over their heads. Writers go back outside in the rain with a notebook in front of them and a pen in hand. They look at the puddles, watch them fill, watch the rain splash in them.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Living twice". p.53
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

“Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.”

Ismail Kadare (1936) Albanian writer

Ismail Kadare

Literature , Nature

“Every poem is political. In poems not obviously political, the writer is trying to avoid something…”

Danez Smith American poet

“In literature you don't just read one poem or novel after another, but enter into a complete world of which every work of literature forms part. This affects the writer as much as it does the reader.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time

Literature , World , Reading , Parting

“They can extinguish awareness by dumbing down education, owning TV stations, paying "guest fees" to leader writers, or just buying the media up. The media—and not just The Washington Post—is where democracies conduct their civil wars.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", p. 124
Cloud Atlas (2004), Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery (Part 1)

Democracy , War , Education

“I think the only responsibility that writers have is to our own truth. If that happens to merge with contemporary issues, then yes, write that truth. But what we are haunted by is not a thing we choose. And that choice is most certainly not made by the latest headlines.”

Shobha Rao

On whether writers have the responsibility to write about contemporary issues in “‘I can’t think of a happier story’: Shobha Rao talks GIRLS BURN BRIGHTER” https://www.booklistreader.com/2018/03/06/books-and-authors/i-cant-think-of-a-happier-story-shobha-rao-talks-girls-burn-brighter/ in Booklist Reader (2018 Mar 6)

Truth , Thinking

“I think especially television is a conversation between the writer and the audience, and they're bringing all of their humanity to it. The actors are really just this conduit in the middle, who everybody kind of thinks of like the player, but no, we're really the instrument.”

Penn Badgley (1986) American actor and musician

Source: "Penn Badgley Explores Joe Goldberg's 'Primal' Parenting In You Season 3" in ELLE https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a37886117/penn-badgley-you-season-3-interview/ (18 October 2021)

Thinking

“Being a woman writer, I would be deceiving myself if I said I write completely through the eye of a man. There’s nothing bad in it, but that does not make me a feminist writer. I hate that name. The tag is from the Western world – like we are called the Third World.”

Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) author

Speaking on her writing not as a feminist [as quoted in "Zikoko" https://www.zikoko.com/life/oldies/9-thought-provoking-quotes-from-the-literary-icon-buchi-emecheta/).

Hate , World

“When independent-thinking people (and here I do not include the corporate media) begin to rally under flags, when writers, painters, musicians, film makers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the “Nation,” it’s time for all of us to sit up and worry.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Source: Articles, Come September (29 Sep 2002)

People , Time , Art , Thinking

“Any suffering registered in your mind makes the emotion deeper. Maybe as a writer, I am constantly looking for tragedy.”

Geling Yan (1958) Chinese writer and screenwriter

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

Suffering

“From early on, I was nourished in a literary way. I didn't realize that there was a writer already living in me”

Geling Yan (1958) Chinese writer and screenwriter

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

Way

“Of course, the vision of many works, such as the sense of picture and imagery, is actually unconscious by the writer. If the writer is conscious, he will write very artificial things.”

Geling Yan (1958) Chinese writer and screenwriter

Source: "Yan Geling: I Am Also A Person In The Cave" https://www.bannedbook.org/en/bnews/lifebaike/20211010/1635954.html (10 October 2021)

Sense

“The reason that I like to use classical myths as models is because African American writers and African American stories are usually understood as occurring in some kind of vacuum — because of slavery.”

Jesmyn Ward (1977) American writer

Source: On using mythology in her works in “INTERVIEWS: Powell's Interview: Jesmyn Ward, Author of 'Sing, Unburied, Sing'” https://www.powells.com/post/interviews/powells-interview-jesmyn-ward-author-of-sing-unburied-sing in Powell City of Books (2017 Aug 29)

“A script is only the beginning of the process. But with books, what you write is exactly what people read. So as a writer, that's very satisfying.”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

Source: AME with D.J. MacHale https://www.reddit.com/r/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark/comments/l875no/ame_with_dj_machale/ (January 29, 2021)

Reading , People , Books

“Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's naming.’
For the loser now will be later to win”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Source: Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964), The Times They Are A-Changin

Chance

“I believe it is important to speak to your readers in person... to enable people to have a whole picture of me; I have to both write and speak. I view my role as a writer and also as an oral communicator.”

Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) author

Source: On speaking to readers in “Interview with Buchi Emecheta” http://www.emeagwali.com/nigeria/biography/buchi-emecheta-voice-09jul96.html (Philip Emeagwali)

Personality , People , Communication

“I will venture to claim that I have been an honest writer and a loyal Englishman. England has many worthier sons; but few who more dearly love her.”

Robert Blatchford (1851–1943) British writer and activist

Source: My Eighty Years (1931), p. 274

Love

“The writer has a fundamental responsibility to write well or to write the best he can, because if he doesn’t he’s not a writer. And when a writer writes, he’s always referring to a social and historical context…”

Reinaldo Arenas (1943–1990) Cuban poet/novelist/playwright

Source: On a writer’s responsibility in “The Literature of Uprootedness: An Interview with Reinaldo Arenas” https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-literature-of-uprootedness-an-interview-with-reinaldo-arenas in The New Yorker (2013 Dec 5)