Karrine Steffans Quotes

No one writes a great book every time out, or even a good book.

You can write the best book you can, and that might still not be enough. Appeal isn't something that most writers can't strive for or identify. It's something even the best agents and editors can't always identify.

One of the more interesting things I've learnt since becoming a writer is that if you like the book, you'll generally like the person. It doesn't always work in reverse - there are huge numbers of lovely people out there writing not very good books.

I attempt to write a good novel. Whether it is literature or not is something that will be decided by the ages, not by me and not by a pack of critics around the globe.

The important thing is to do what you most love in the best way. If you love literature, you could be a great writer and perhaps one day become a Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature.

I am, really, a great writer; my only difficulty is in finding great readers.

I think you can be taught to write. You can't be taught to be a good writer. For that, you have to bring something to it, yourself, something that can't be given to you.

I believe if you write a great book, the chances are it'll get a great reception.

Great writing is great writing. It's as simple as all that.

Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.

The fact people think that when you sell a lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insult to the readership. I get a little angry when people try to say such a thing.

I've written fiction... but the nonfiction has always received the most attention.

I think it's great when writers get recognition; it doesn't happen very often. I just don't want that writer to be me. Let it be Aaron Sorkin or, you know, somebody good.

I felt like I was never going to be a great writer. I felt like I was going to be a good writer at best. I wanted to be great at something.

Good writing is good writing, and I'm so happy when I read it.

Minor writers think style is all.

I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

I don't think you can ever assess your work. I don't think Turgenev could assess his any more than I can assess mine, and his didn't have a social impact as much as great literary impact.

You become a great writer by writing.

I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.

Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.

Robert Ludlum, all of them, write the absolute best they can. You can't tone it down. You just do what you do, and if it comes out literary, so be it.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.