Return
Home
The
Credits
The
Cast
Act
1
Act
2
Act
3
The
End
The
Reviews
     
 
AUTHORS & AUTOBIOGRAPHY

.
.
.

AUTHORS


see: "BOOKS"
see: "JOURNALISTS"
see: "POETS"
see: "SHAKESPEARE"
see: "WRITING"


There is probably no hell for authors in the next world--
they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.
--Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904)
American writer

Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one
direction, have great influence on the public mind.
--Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters,
_Reflections on the Revolution in France_ [1790]

The success of many works is found in the relation between
the mediocrity of the authors' ideas and that of the ideas of
the public.
--Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794)
French playwright and conversationalist

If you liked a book, don't meet the author.
--Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
American writer of detective fiction

There are three difficulties in authorship--to write anything
worth the publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and
to get sensible men to read it.
--C.C. Colton (1780-1832)
English clergyman and writer

Those authors into whose hands nature has placed a magic wand,
with which they no sooner touch us than we forget the unhappiness
in life, than the darkness leaves our soul, and we are reconciled to
existence, should be placed among the benefactors of the human
race.
--Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
French writer and philosopher

Of all unfortunate men one of the unhappiest is a middling
author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and
Prime Minister [1868, 1874-1880]

The most original modern authors are not so because they
advance what is new, but simply because they know how to
put what they have to say, as if it had never been said before.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright

Graham Greene famously remarked that there was
a splinter of ice in the heart of every writer, and
the comment is borne out by Arnold Bennett. A
realist writer, Bennett took trouble to get the
details right. He claimed that the description of
the death of an old character in one of his novels
could not be improved on. 'I took infinite pains
over it ,' he said. 'All the time my father was
dying I was at the bedside making copious notes.'
--in _The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes_
ed. Philip Gooden [2002]

^

Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864)
American novelist.

By mutual agreement, Hawthorne's wife never
disturbed him during the course of his writing.
On the night he finished "The Scarlet Letter,"
he read the last chapter to her. 'It broke her
heart,' he said later, 'and sent her up to bed
with a grievous headache, which I look upon
as a triumphant success.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

^

Hugo, Victor (1802-1885)
French poet, novelist, and dramatist.

When Victor Hugo wanted to know what his
publishers thought of the manuscript of
_Les Misérables_, he sent them a note
reading simply: '?' They replied: '!'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

The only happy author in this world is he who
is below the care of reputation.
--Washington Irving (1783-1859)
American writer

-

Why don’t you write books people can read?
--Nora Joyce (1884–1951),
to her husband, James


Mostly he read himself.
--Nora Joyce (1884–1951),
when asked in her widowhood which authors
James Joyce had liked to read;
in Brenda Maddox _Nora: The Biography of Nora Joyce_

-

People take England on trust, and repeat that Shakespeare
is the greatest of all authors. I have read him: there is nothing
that compares Racine or Corneille: his plays are unreadable,
pitiful.
--Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Emperor of France [1804-1815]

When he had his first acceptance the stack of rejection
slips was even with the top of his desk.
--Lee Pennington, Writer's Digest,
speaking of William Saroyan (1908-1981)

... and so there ain't nothing more to write about, and
I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd 'a' knowed what a
trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't 'a' tackled it,
and ain't a-going to no more.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot

To Herbert Westbrook, without whose never-failing
sympathy and encouragement this book would have
been finished in half the time.
--P.G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse (1881-1975)
English writer and American citizen from 1955.
Dedication in _A Gentleman of Leisure_ [1910]




AUTOBIOGRAPHY

.
.
.

see "AUTHORS" (above)
see "MEMORY"
see: "TRUTH"


I used to think I was an interesting person, but I must
tell you how sobering a thought it is to realize your
life's story fills about thirty-five pages and you have,
actually, not much to say.
--Roseanne Barr (1953- )
American comedian

An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with
the last installment missing.
--Quentin Crisp [Denis Pratt] (1908-1999)
English writer,
_The Naked Civil Servant_ [1968], ch. 29

He made the books and he died.
--William Faulkner (1897-1962)
American novelist, letter to Malcolm Cowley
[11 February 1949], (his own "sum and history of my life")

I don't think anyone should write their autobiography
until after they're dead.
--Samuel Goldwyn (1882-1974)
American film producer

Autobiography is now as common as adultery
and hardly less reprehensible.
--John Grigg (1924- )
British writer and journalist,
in "Sunday Times" [28 February 1962]

I should be trading on the blood of my men.
--Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)
American Confederate general, (refusing an offer to
write his memoirs; attributed, perhaps apocryphal)

The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you
can't fool around. If you write about someone else, you can
stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about
yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly
that there may be honor among thieves, but *you* are just
a dirty liar.
--Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx (1895-1977)
American film comedian,
_Groucho and Me_ [1959]

Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals
something disgraceful. A man who gives a good
account of himself is probably lying, since any life
when viewed from the inside is simply a series of
defeats.
--George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903-1950)
English novelist

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll
probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy
childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all
before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of
crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to
know the truth.
--J.D. Salinger (1919- )
American novelist and short-story writer
opening lines, _Catcher in the Rye_ [1951]


end page




| ABILITY - ABUSE | ACADEMY AWARDS - ACCUSTOMED | ACHIEVEMENT - ACTING | ACTIONS | ACTORS | ACTUARIES - ADVERSARIES | ADVERSITY - ADVERTISING | ADVICE | AFFAIRS - AFGHANISTAN | AGE | AGNOSTICS - AIRPLANES | ALCOHOL | ALIBI - AMBITION | AMERICA | AMERICANS | AMERICAN INDIANS | AMERICAN REVOLUTION | AMUSEMENT - ANCESTORS | ANGER | ANIMAL RIGHTS & ANIMALS | ANIMOSITIES - APATHY | APOLOGY & APPEARANCE | APPEASEMENT | APPLAUSE - APRIL | ARCHAEOLOGISTS - ARCHITECTURE | ARGUMENT | ARISTOCRACY - ART | ASHAMED - ASTROLOGY | ATHEISM | ATOM BOMB - ATTRACTION | AUSTRALIA | AUTHORITY & AUTOMOBILES | AUTHORS & AUTOBIOGRAPHY | AUTUMN - AVIATION |
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
| Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews |
 
     



Copyright © 2007, someworthwhilequotes.com. All rights reserved.