Walter Bagehot Quotes

Good writers are of necessity rare.

My preference is for really good writing, and I just really don't care where it is.

You write about what you know.

As a journalist for 35 years, and now author for 20, I've learned that there's always more.

Just because someone has stylistic limitations doesn't necessarily make them a worse writer.

Write about what you know, that's what I say.

Good writers hate bad writing but hating bad writing doesn’t make you good. Writing badly does.

I don't know if Jim was a major part of that or not. He is one of a small group of real storytellers. He has enormous imagination and ability to write. I'm glad he's coming back. It's going to be good for the show.

Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it.

There's many times this year I've sat back and thought, I'm making a living from making things up. It's the only skill I have so I've been really lucky.

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

Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego.

I've figured out in the course of my life that the one thing I'm good at doing is writing books, and it would be crazy to trade that in for something else.

If we look at the realm of knowledge, how exceedingly small and limited is that part acquired through our own senses; how wide is that we gain from other sources.

One can't write without having read - you have to read before beginning to write - and universities offer a very good opportunity to read.

A.J. Liebling, one of my heroes, used to say that he could write better than anyone who wrote faster, and faster than anyone who could write better. I'm one nine-hundredth as good as Liebling, but that principle may slightly apply.

I'm here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something.

There are plenty of clever young writers. But there is too much genius, not enough talent.

I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything.

Sean's a great, great writer.

Anyone who doesn't read doesn't have any business writing.

Because there is no better tool for writing than experience. It has very little to do with grammar and everything to do with knowing.

We mistake being able to get lots of information from everywhere very quickly with actually getting knowledge.

I know everything that's out there that's worth knowing about.

George is so prolific as a writer.