John Grisham Quotes

Like most writers, I read deeply into the genre in which I write.

There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer - reading is so much a part of it.

I wouldn't like to be a character in one of my books!

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.

As a writer, one is busy with archaeology.

Since childhood, I wrote a lot of fiction, a lot of stories, but I most loved writing essays.

Many fiction writers write for the critics or for themselves; they forget the common reader. I never do. I don't think journalism clashes with my fiction; on the contrary, it helps enormously.

My primary ambition is to be a fiction writer... Being a critic wasn't an aspiration of mine.

I've always enjoyed writing, I graduated with a degree in English; I've done bits of journalism.

I'm a writer, not an activist. My job is to analyse things, to think them through and examine them.

The author may not interpret. But he must tell why and how he wrote his book.

Novelists should be like scientists, dissecting the cadaver.

Faulkner is a writer who has had much to do with my soul, but Hemingway is the one who had the most to do with my craft - not simply for his books, but for his astounding knowledge of the aspect of craftsmanship in the science of writing.

Those of us who write spend our entire lives in an endless English class.

You can't be a storyteller and a speechwriter at the same time.

Real novelists, those we admire, those we consider timeless in their language and character and scene, those who receive accolades for inventive language and form, have writing lives we imagine in specific ways.

Not even the severest critics of Jeffrey Archer can deny his style.

It really helped me as a writer to understand how other writers think.

We're not just writers; we're readers probably more than anything else. That's how you learn how to write and how you learn to appreciate good writing: by reading.

To some degree, I consider myself a writer, and so I have a strong relationship with literature.

Most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad.

I tried to reject everything I knew as a TV writer when I decided to be a novelist, and the books didn't work. Finally I realized I should go back to all the techniques I'd learned.

I write in a pretty straightforward way. I kind of sit down at page one and start writing.

I rewrote the ending to 'Farewell to Arms,' the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.

Headline writing is an art form.