Mark Leibovich Quotes

I really write for people.

I've always liked new writing.

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

As writers, we can't predict who might come along who might find our offerings valuable.

You want an audience. If you didn't, you wouldn't be a writer. The biggest motivation to write is the knowledge that someone will read it.

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.

You always hope you'll surprise somebody with the work. If you write something human and appealing, the perfect reader could be anyone.

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.

I love to write.

I think all writers are mainly writing for themselves because I believe that most writers are writing based on a need to write. But at the same time, I feel that writers are, of course, writing for their readers, too.

I love writing different things.

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

Books, I don't know what you see in them. I can understand a person reading them, but I can't for the life of me see why people have to write them.

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.

No writer … has any life in the absence of people who need what he writes

I'm clearly not a writer, but I'm always a fan of them.

I like writing.

For me, being a writer, you want to communicate with people, but if your goal is that every person is going to love what you do, then you're always going to be disappointed.

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.

It's so easy, as a writer, to get stuck in your own head, to live in the little worlds you create. To forget that there are people out there reading your work, people who may be deeply affected by what you do, that you are writing not just for yourself, but for them.

I just try to put the thing out and hope somebody will read it. Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say 'Yes,' I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you.'

Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

When I write, I try to capture one of those pivotal moments. If I succeed, I have shifted the reader's view of the world, just a little. The character is not the only one to experience change. That is my job, shifting perceptions, one story at a time. The trouble is, I don't like writing. But I love having written.

I believe in my writing.

I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.