Jean de la Bruyere Quotes

The only people who can be excused for letting a bad book loose on the world are the poor devils who have to write for a living.

A well-read writer, with good taste, is one who has the command of the wit of other men; he searches where knowledge is to be found; and though he may not himself excel in invention, his ingenuity may compose one of those agreeable books, the deliciæ of literature, that will out-last the fading meteors of his day.

Most books fail, not so much from a want of ability in their authors, as from an absence in their productions of a thorough development of their ability.

Writers aren't born, they're made - from practice, reading, and a lot of caffeine.

When a book comes from the publisher and you see it for the first time... Of course it's not remotely like seeing a baby for the first time, but I can remember with each book what room I was in when I opened it. That would be excitement, though, I think. Not pride.

If you look at the publishers I've worked with, generally, they're a great bunch. Creation is unlike any other publishing house you can think of. The people I've worked with have integrity and intelligence and, almost always, less money than ideas.

I've never written a book before.

I want to write books.

Sometimes many publishers prefer that you write the same book every time, but I have a low boredom threshold so that isn't going to happen.

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.

Books are like tweets, except longer.

That's all you have to ask from yourself writing a book. That it's the best you can do and that you did it without any ego involved and that you did it for somebody else. That's the best you can do.

There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.

If you ever read one of my books I hope you'll think it looks so easy. In fact, I wrote those chapters 20 times over, and over, and over, and that if you want to write at a good level, you'll have to do that too.

For me, reading books and writing them are tied together. The words of other writers teach me and refresh me and inspire me.

People who can write a book usually do.

In terms of the economics, yes obviously the rise of e-books and how people choose to read books has a big effect on the economics of the game. But whether people are buying them on paper or downloading them there's still some poor wretch in a room who is trying to write a poem, write a story, write a novel. And so my job doesn't change. It's just how people receive it and economic conditions on the ground change, but that doesn't affect what I write.

Always I'm working on some of book. That's the way I make a living.

The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man.

I can’t talk about my books. I have written them and tried to forget them. I have written once, and readers have read me many times, no? I try to think of what I wrote, it’s very unhealthy to think about the past, the case of elegies is very sad, as much as the case of complaints.

He that desires to print a book, should much more desire, to be a book.

My life as a writer consists of 1/8 talent and 7/8 discipline.

Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention; there are many books that owe their success to two things; good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.

I spend most of my time writing.