Bad writers have influences. Good writers steal.

 

Bad writers have influences. Good writers steal.
--
Dragon Page Cover to Cover interview, Episode 372A (8 September 2009)

 

S. M. Stirling

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The good stories, of course, write themselves. And somebody wants to know who are the really good writers, and how many of them there are. There aren't any. Most of the writers are likeable frauds. Some are unlikable frauds.

 

R. A. Lafferty

 

[reading an email] "Dear Craig, … are your letters written by your writers?" No. "Does this make me one of your writers?" (ponders) Yes. "Why haven't I been paid?" Because you're one of my writers!

 

Craig Ferguson

 

Writers may be solitary but they also tend to flock together: they like being solitary together. I knew a lot of writers in London and many of them were award-winning writers and many of them were award-winning, respectable writers. And the trouble with being an award-winning, respectable writer is that you probably are not making a living.
If you write one well-reviewed, well-respected, not bad selling, but not a bestseller list book every three years, which you sell for a whopping 30,000 pounds, that's still going to average out to 10,000 pounds a year and you will make more managing a McDonald's. With overtime you'd probably make more working in a McDonald's. So there were incredibly well-respected, award-winning senior writers who, to make ends meet, were writing film novelizations and TV novelizations under pen names that they were desperately embarrassed about and didn't want anybody to know about.

 

Neil Gaiman

 

For the social ecologist language is not "communication." It is not just "message." It is substance. It is the cement that holds humanity together. It creates community and communication. ...Social ecologists need not be "great" writers; but they have to be respectful writers, caring writers.

 

Peter F. Drucker

 

No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the Prize can accept it other than with humility. There is no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to his knowledge and his conscience.

 

Ernest Hemingway