A. A. Milne Quotes

If I can hit No. 1 on the 'New York Times' best-seller list, I'm thinking of having the entire list tattooed on my body somewhere. It would be fabulous.

The only time I was ever approached to write a book was when I was most famous.

you want to write a book for so many reasons ... The main reason ... is because it will make you well-known and beloved and popular and successful and famous and respected. You also write ... to make money, but that motivation is not first on the list.

I'm a writer. I never expected to be recognised on the street. I never expected to get that kind of coverage, good or bad. I never expected to sell as many books as I have.

There are those who write because they believe they have something so marvelous that it will make them famous and wealthy, a lauded commodity who will be invited to a lifetime of cocktail parties.

I'm not going to give it the big 'I am' now that I'm a New York Times bestseller.

Most people I know don't even realize I'm an award-winning author, but I have gotten many opportunities to travel to places I'd never have visited otherwise.

I would very much like to become a best-selling author.

I'd only been in the business three or four years, but I told myself that someday I'd like to be Mort Janklow.

When I was about 14, in about 1984, I decided to become a great poet. Faber & Faber was going to publish me, and when Ted Hughes read my first anthology he would invite me to Yorkshire for meat pies and mentorship.

There are writers who go their whole lives and never hit that No. 1 spot.

We sold 400 books of poetry and thought we were well on the way to immortality.

Writers are not celebrities, so you don't expect to walk down the street and hear, 'Oh my God, there's Sylvia Day.' You prefer to be anonymous.

I want to leave behind a literary legacy.

All stars are businessmen. Once you decide to become a star, you are talking about money, fame, and being successful.

You get early inoculation against the idea of success if you're a poet. When I published my first collection of sonnets, I sold about five copies; now kids study them for A level. Wanting to be successful in that other world of money or fame is not interesting. Poetry isn't like that, and it never has been.

If you really want a prize, or if you really want applause, you should try to write as many books as humanly possible.

The universal object and idol of men of letters is reputation.

All serious writers want the obvious rewards: fame, money, women, love -- and most of all, an audience!

I just want to be rich and famous.

On the strength of Vonnegut's reputation, 'Breakfast of Champions' spent a year on the best-seller lists, proving that he could indeed publish anything and make money.

I struggled for a long time to get anything published.

Is the prestige conferred by the Man Booker prize for the book or me? I would prefer it on the book and for me to be treated ordinarily.

When I started out in this business, I really wanted to become iconic, but I'm glad that didn't happen. I like to do things like travel on public transport unnoticed.

'Winning' in Hollywood means not just power, money, and complimentary smoked-salmon pizza, but also that everyone around you fails just as you are peaking.