Russell Banks Quotes

It is indeed difficult to make a living as a writer, and my advice to anyone contemplating a literary career is to have some other trade.

Creative writing programmes are not very necessary. They just exist so that people like us can make a living.

Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson have both been writing for a long time. In 30 years, will writers of that quality have been able to serve the same sort of apprenticeship? Not unless they can make enough money now to live on.

I never earned a dollar that was not somehow through writing.

I earn more than I thought I would when I became a poet.

I was pushing for a career in poetry and of course the received wisdom was that you would never make a living at it.

I'm probably one of the few authors in this country who could very comfortably live off my writing.

At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it.

If you become a creative writer with the idea that you are going to make a whole lot of money, then maybe this isn't the best choice for you.

As a middle-aged woman who has had some luck as a writer, I'd like this profession of author to remain a possibility for young writers in the future - and not become an arena solely for the hobbyist or the well-heeled.

If I can make a living as a writer, I can do anything.

Being a professional writer is not an easy way to make a living.

You know, as fiction writers, if our instincts are off, we can't pay our bills.

I got a couple of stories published, but the kind of money you were making for publishing a short story, I could see I wasn't going to make a living at it.

I tell young people who ask me about a future in writing not to go into it unless they get married to someone rich.

My aunt could never understand how writing could be a full-time job. She'd keep asking when I'd get a real job!

Parents, it seems, have an almost Olympian persistence when it comes to suggesting more secure and lucrative lines of work for their children who have the notion that writing is an actual profession. I say this from experience.

I'm still very blunt: If you want to be a writer, get a day job. The fact that I have actually been able to make a living at it is astonishing.

One of the things I learned from my father, and it did not serve me well at all, was that he was a successful writer, he earned a living. And it was a shock for me to find out that it was actually hard to make a living as a writer.

I've been writing full-time since I was 23.

You don't become a poet if you want to make any money.

On a more practical level, anyone out there who wants to be a writer should clearly recognize that this is a brutal business, where even incredibly talented people sometimes never make a living. If you want to chase such a dream, please have a Plan B in place.

Who will want to write if writing doesn't pay?

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'm very lucky to be in projects that have such skilled writing in them.