We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship. — George Wald
The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession. — George Sand
One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title page, another works away at the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index. — Oliver Goldsmith
Nobody is the author or producer of his own life story ... somebody began it and is its subject in the twofold sense, namely, its actor and sufferer ... but nobody is the author. — Hannah Arendt
I think authors can get into trouble viewing the subject matter as their turf — Laura Hillenbrand
Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. — Walter Benjamin
Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one. — Salman Rushdie
The trouble with being a ghostwriter or artist is that you must remain rather anonymously without credit. If one wants the credit, one has to cease being a ghost and become a leader or innovator. — Bob Kane
People's interest is in the product, not in its authorship. — Jonathan Ive
Every artist writes his own autobiography. — Havelock Ellis
Style has always been in my mind the author's Self, the creative expression of that Self. — Whit Burnett
A publisher should always be on the receiving end. He should take an interest in almost any subject and remain anonymous, letting the author take center stage. — Cass Canfield
The author of haiku should be absent, and only the haiku present. — Anne Bancroft
In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust. — Oscar Wilde
Short Authorship Quotes
Good ideas come from everywhere. It's more important to recognize a good idea than to author it. — Jeanne Gang
It takes courage to be the author of your life. — Nicholas Lore
The pen is the tongue of the mind. — Miguel de Cervantes
If God is the author of life, there must be a script. — Ravi Zacharias
Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear Glean after what it can. — Philip James Bailey
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well. — John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby
The lover of letters loves power too. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Envy's a sharper spur than pay: No author ever spar'd a brother; Wits are gamecocks to one another. — John Gay
Sound judgment is the ground of writing well. — Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon
Author Of Quotes
Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth. — Albert Einstein
Authority, power, and wealth do not change a man; they only reveal him — Ali ibn Abi Talib
There is a higher power, a higher influence, a God who rules and reigns and controls circumstances and situations that are beyond your area and realm of authority. — T. D. Jakes
It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority. — Benjamin Franklin
When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. — Frederic Bastiat
Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind; that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself. — Susanna Wesley
Holy Scripture is the highest authority for every believer, the standard of faith and the foundation for reform. — John Wycliffe
What we must eliminate are systems of representation that carry with them the authority which has become repressive because it doesn't permit or make room for interventions on the part of those represented. — Edward Said
If someone writes a great story, people praise the author, not the pen. People don't say, 'Oh what an incredible pen...where can I get a pen like this so I can write great stories?' Well, I am just a pen in the hands of the Lord. He is the author. All praise should go to him. — Keith Green
The Constitution is the origin and measure of legislative authority. It says to legislators, thus far ye shall go and no farther. Not a particle of it should be shaken; not a pebble of it should be removed. — William Paterson
He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who writes verses builds it in granite. - Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton — Bill Vaughan
My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody. — U.G. Krishnamurti
Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind. — Edmund Burke
Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw more from them as wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and bones. — Henry Ward Beecher
Oh, rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain; Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun. — George Crabbe
Knowledge is the foundation and source of good writing.
[Lat., Scibendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.] — Horace
Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written o'er again;
The unwritten only still belongs to thee:
Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The writer, like a priest, must be exempted from secular labor. His work needs a frolic health; he must be at the top of his condition. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print, but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can hardly accuse myself of a personal intrusion. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
The great and good do no die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens. — Samuel Smiles
Too indolent to bear the toil of writing; I mean of writing well; I say nothing about quantity.
[Lat., Piger scribendi ferre laborem;
Scribendi recte, nam ut multum nil moror.] — Horace
I didn't really escape that gravity until I moved 300 miles south to go to college at 18, where authorship no longer seemed something liable to induce vengeful punishment. — David Knopfler
Writings survive the years; it is by writings that you know Agamemnon, and those who fought for or against him.
[Lat., Scripta ferunt annos; scriptis Agamemnona nosti,
Et quisquis contra vel simul arma tulit.] — Ovid
This letter gives me a tongue; and were I not allowed to write, I should be dumb.
[Lat., Praebet mihi littera linguam:
Et, si non liceat scribere, mutus ero.] — Ovid
A man starts upon a sudden, takes Pen, Ink, and Paper, and without ever having had a thought of it before, resolves within himself he will write a Book; he has no Talent at Writing, but he wants fifty Guineas. — Jean De La Bruyere
A man of moderate Understanding, thinks he writes divinely: A man of good Understanding, thinks he writes reasonably. — Jean De La Bruyere
He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whose book full of them? — Martial
Often turn the stile [correct with care], if you expect to write anything worthy of being read twice.
[Lat., Saepe stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint Scripturus.] — Horace
Let it (what you have written) be kept back until the ninth year.
[Lat., Nonumque prematur in annum.] — Horace
To write much, and to write rapidly, are empty boasts. The world desires to know what you have done, and not how you did it. — George Henry Lewes
The unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood, Yet only eats and drinks what you think good. — John Dryden
And people do enjoy the plays at completely different levels. And, likewise, they enjoy the authorship question... at completely different levels. — Mark Rylance
If you're fortunate enough with your history, like with Men in the Cities, your work becomes so absorbed in culture that the authorship of it doesn't exist anymore. — Robert Longo
There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this. — Christian Nestell Bovee
My music, it breathes. It's the mysticism of sound. I'm a sound seeker, and I'm enthralled with it, by what it can do to change the molecules and uplift people. They feel something when we play. I can't take authorship for that. I can take that I'm in service. — Charles Lloyd
Authorship is, according to the spirit in which it is pursued, an infamy, a pastime, a day-labor, a handicraft, an art, a science, a virtue. — August Wilhelm Von Schlegel
It was among the ruins of the capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised nearly twenty years of my life. — Edward Gibbon
This is the highest miracle of genius, that things which are not should be as though they were, that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. — Thomas B. Macaulay
Translation is a form of passive aggression. In doing it, a writer chooses to forgo original authorship so as to play havoc with a foreign original in a process of imitation, zigzagging between the foreign and receiving languages but in the last analysis cancelling the first in favor of the second. — Lawrence Venuti
No author ever drew a character consistent to human nature, but he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with — Ayn Rand
Nothing so fretful, so despicable as a Scribbler, see what I am, and what a parcel of Scoundrels I have brought about my ears, and what language I have been obliged to treat them with to deal with them in their own way; -- all this comes of Authorship. — Lord Byron
I don't particularly care about photographic authorship. Whether an astronaut who doesn't even have a viewfinder makes an image, a robotic camera, a military photographer, or Mike Light really doesn't matter. What matters is the context of the final photograph and the meaning it generates within that context. — Michael Light
The men, who labour and digest things most, Will be much apter to despond than boast; For if your author be profoundly good, 'Twill cost you dear before he's understood. — Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon
In Conclusion
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