Arthur Koestler Quotes

Writers are essential. Readers are essential. Publishers are not.

But I was, and still am, an avid reader and so when I first started I chose to photograph many of the great writers in this country to try and earn a living.

Many say an art dealer running a museum is a 'conflict of interest.' But maybe the art world has lived an artificial or unintentional lie all of these years when it comes to conflicts of interest.

Writers are the lunatic fringe of publishing.

If the rewards to authors go down, simple economics says there will be fewer authors. It's not that people won't burn with the passion to write. The number of people wanting to be novelists is probably not going to decline - but certainly the number of people who are going to be able to make a living as authors is going to dramatically decrease.

I'm not sure I can say there is a clean line between me as an individual and me as a lawyer.

My generation was maybe the last in which you could set up shop as a writer and hope to make a living at it.

I know writers, and they seem to be the most disgruntled part of the art world.

I cannot be music director at La Scala and at Staatsoper. This would be unfair to one of the two institutions.

I'm envious of writers.

I consider myself a writer, foremost - a nonfiction writer.

Should you trust a stockbroker who's married to a travel agent?

There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.

Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.

[Writers are] the highest paid secretaries in the world.

If you don't believe what I'm telling you, then ask yourself this: would any decent, kind-hearted individual become a writer? Of course not.

The States has more publishers and a wider range of aesthetics but so much more competition - the amount of writers vying for the same spot as you is staggering. I think they're different challenges, but equally frustrating when you're trying to get your foot in the door.

The only people who can be excused for letting a bad book loose on the world are the poor devils who have to write for a living.

[Margot Hentoff] was an editor there for a time as well as a writer.

I decided to make my living as a magazine writer. And I found that it was really easy and fun.

In the end I'm still a writer. I'm still a journalist, and my first responsibility is to my readers. That's where I have to draw the line.

I've had good publishers and bad publishers, and you've got to learn when the advice is sensible and when it's not.

Are writers reporters, prophets, crazies, entertainers, preachers, judges, what?

If you want to take off your journalist outfit and declare yourself a pundit and go argue against Donald Trump, go for it. But you can't wear both hats.

I have never earned one penny from any pharmaceutical company. I will never accept one penny from them either. Ever.