Helen Gurley Brown Quotes

Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.

The only time I was ever approached to write a book was when I was most famous.

I'm a writer. I never expected to be recognised on the street. I never expected to get that kind of coverage, good or bad. I never expected to sell as many books as I have.

There are those who write because they believe they have something so marvelous that it will make them famous and wealthy, a lauded commodity who will be invited to a lifetime of cocktail parties.

You get early inoculation against the idea of success if you're a poet. When I published my first collection of sonnets, I sold about five copies; now kids study them for A level. Wanting to be successful in that other world of money or fame is not interesting. Poetry isn't like that, and it never has been.

If you really want a prize, or if you really want applause, you should try to write as many books as humanly possible.

Too many people write books because they want to be a New York Times best-seller. They want the glory and the fame.

One paradox of professional writing is that books written solely for money and/or acclaim will almost never be good enough to garner either.

Friends open the door for me to write. Then I get paid attention to and it allows me to write other books. The Great Spring and the thirtieth anniversary of Bones just came out and while I'm happy and excited about that, I've already finished a new book. That's what practice does. You don't get caught.

All serious writers want the obvious rewards: fame, money, women, love -- and most of all, an audience!

I'm not doing this to be a pop star. I've had plenty of money and attention. I'm doing it for credibility.

There are writers who go their whole lives and never hit that No. 1 spot.

No one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published.

I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame.

Let authors write for glory and reward. The truth is well paid when she is sung and heard.

But the thing is, I was never looking at a strategic way of gaining fame. That's not why I'm doing this.

I'm not going to give it the big 'I am' now that I'm a New York Times bestseller.

What's the point in being an unpopular writer? It just doesn't make a lot of sense. For me it doesn't, anyway.

I actually don't know anyone who wants to be famous for fame's sake, at least not anyone I respect. But you need to have a certain amount of power in order to be able to do what you want.

Now that people know who I am, I get offered plays here and there. It was so much easier to do it when nobody knew who I was. I can't even imagine that somebody would come and pay money just to come and see me now.

I'm essentially a humorist and, I think, a pretty good one. I've known all along that 'My Friend Dahmer' is the one book I'll be most known for, and in a way, that's a drag, as it's nothing like the rest of the work I've done or will do moving forward. But the way I figure, it's better to have a best-known work than not to have one at all.

Most people I know don't even realize I'm an award-winning author, but I have gotten many opportunities to travel to places I'd never have visited otherwise.

The reason I keep acting is that it fuels some kind of passion in me, but the day that those butterflies stop, is the day that I'm gonna quit because I could care less about the magazines or being famous or the money or the awards.

...and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything

May God strike me down with a hammer on the head before I write a book with a teach-y goal!