Author's Desire Quotes

I'm just writing a story that I want to read.

When I was young, I knew William Burroughs really well. And William's secret desire, which he never quite did, was to write a straightforward detective novel.

A writer, or at least a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: “Whom do you write for?” The question is, of course, a silly one, but I can give it a silly answer. Occasionally I come across a book which I feel has been written especially for me and for me only. Like a jealous lover I don’t want anybody else to hear of it. To have a million such readers, unaware of each other’s existence, to be read with passion and never talked about, is the daydream, surely, of every author.

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.

Many people who want to be writers don't really want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print.

Every author really wants to have letters printed in the papers. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels.

I always, always wanted to be a writer.

To have been able to write the books I wanted to write, on demanding subjects like war and the history of psychiatry, and for them to have sold in the numbers they have - and then go around saying: 'Actually, I'd also like to have won the Costa Book of the Year?' That would be ridiculous.

If you write a book that's as powerful and successful as 'Bastard,' there's a strong desire to prove there's something else.