Chris Pavone Quotes

It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful.

I never earned a dollar that was not somehow through writing.

My aunt could never understand how writing could be a full-time job. She'd keep asking when I'd get a real job!

At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it.

For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writers are able to learn a living from their work that is equivalent to the living earned by the average dentist or accountant.

I think any writer is a fool if he doesn't do it for money. There needs to be some kind of incentive in addition to the project. It all goes together. It's fun to sit there and think of characters and get them into action, then be paid for it.

But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.

As a past president of the Writers Guild, I think women shouldn't write for free. Maybe you have to do it for a time, to make a reputation, but I think the idea of giving your work away is the beginning of authors not being able to make a living.

It is indeed difficult to make a living as a writer, and my advice to anyone contemplating a literary career is to have some other trade.

I was always told you're not going to make much money from writing. You can actually do it. Now I've built a really good, big house out of words.

My generation was maybe the last in which you could set up shop as a writer and hope to make a living at it.

I've been writing full-time since I was 23.

Somebody's always getting me to come lecture to their writing class, and I don't talk about writing at all, I talk about the business of making a living at this racket.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Creative writing programmes are not very necessary. They just exist so that people like us can make a living.

At first, teaching was more or less a straightforward way of making a living and having access to institutional resources while writing - aka libraries. And that was not inconsiderable. But it didn't in any way touch the writing. Maybe it would push the writing aside sometimes, but mostly it was fine.

I knew I wanted to write professionally and get paid.

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.

If you become a creative writer with the idea that you are going to make a whole lot of money, then maybe this isn't the best choice for you.

As a middle-aged woman who has had some luck as a writer, I'd like this profession of author to remain a possibility for young writers in the future - and not become an arena solely for the hobbyist or the well-heeled.

Many writers can't make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I don't really know about its value to the student. I don't mean it's useless. But I wouldn't have wanted anyone to teach me how to write.

It was a precondition to leaving Facebook that I wasn't going to start something that was just about chasing money.

The writer who can't do his job looks to his editor to do it for him, though he won't dream of sharing his royalties with that editor.

I think any writer is a fool if he doesn't do it for money. There needs to be some kind of incentive in addition to the project. It all goes together. It's fun to sit there and think of characters and get them into action, then be paid for it. I can't believe it when writers tell me 'I don't want to show my work to anybody'.

I tell young people who ask me about a future in writing not to go into it unless they get married to someone rich.