W. H. Auden Quotes

I like to be read. That's most of what any writer could want.

I don't write for any particular kind of person.

I think all writers write for an audience. There is no such thing as writing for yourself.

Most of the pleasure of making a book would go if it held nothing to be shared by other people. I would write for a few dozen people, and sometimes it seems that I do so, but I would not write for no-one.

That's point of writing: building what you need, right?

I write what I'd like to read and just hope that, along the way, others might like to read them, too.

I'm so focused on trying to craft the story that I'm in my own little world with it and that process. The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.

I really write for people.

The only other thing which I think is important is: Don't write a book or start a book with the expectation of communicating a message in a very important way.

Readers are what it's all about, aren't they? If not, why am I writing?

The act of writing is a kind of catharsis, a liberation, but I never really concerned myself with that. I write because it interests me.

A very wise author once said that a writer writes for himself, and then publishes for money. I write for myself and publish just for the reader.

Not many people read my stuff, but I really like the ones that do.

I am writing to please myself, though there is a feeling in some place in my head that this may be publishable. I haven't been writing for nothing.

I just wrote what I wanted to be reading.

That's the secret of how to enjoy writing and how to make yourself meet high standards," said Mrs. Berman. "You don't write for the whole world, and you don't write for ten people, or two. You write for just one person.

You are writing for your contemporaries - not for Posterity. If you are lucky, your contemporaries will become Posterity.

I have a different purpose in writing each novel. Some of them seem more similar than others, but the purposes are always different.

One of the reasons that any person writes anything is to try and keep his own sanity together.

There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake.

Write for pleasure and publish for money.

The writing can be its own reward, as you discover more things that you can do. It counts a lot, though, when a story connects with a reader and they take the time to tell me about it.

I think writing should be about change.

Why do I write? I guess that's been asked of every writer. I don't know. It isn't any massive compulsion.