Writer's Ambition Quotes

Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.

I wanted to be a writer, and my mother was like, 'No, why don't you become a lawyer?' That sort of thing.

I've known since I was five that I wanted to be a writer.

I want a body of work; I want a good story after a good story.

I am old enough to think the word 'journalist' is not all that noble a designation. Journalist - that record keeper, quote taker and processor of press releases - was, in the world of letters I grew up in, a lower-down job. To be a writer - once the ambition of every journalist - was to be the greater truth teller.

I can write any kind of novel I want, any time, and sell it, but there's not that many people watching it. Even a low-rated TV show is a couple million more people than read my books. You want to be read, in essence. If you're a television writer, you're a writer and you want people to read your stuff. You're still reaching a bigger audience, that way. That's a philosophical way to look at it.

I knew that I always wanted to be a filmmaker, an actor, a writer and a director, that was always my plan.

As far as fame, the everlasting fame thing. I used to think that was important for a writer... the desire to make your mark.

We had all these famous writers in Sweden and from all over the world home at dinner. I wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be a highbrow writer as my father. He never, ever read anything like crime novels. He wrote biographies of Dante, James Joyce, August Strindberg and Joseph Conrad.

Who knows where the talent goes? Sometimes it goes where the money is. Sometimes I think writers are really interested in the glory.

I always knew I wanted to be a writer.

I've always wanted to be a writer, and I've kept journals since I was eight years old.

My goal is to write one book of fiction, and that's all I want to do. It takes so much time, and I don't really have enough time. But I admire writers so much.

Anyone can write one book: even politicians do it. Starting a second book reveals an intention to be a professional writer.

I definitely have the screenwriting itch.

I wrote my first book at 20, but my whole focus from about the age of 12 was to be a writer.

I want to be a writer someday.

I love to write. I write everything across the board - kids' stories and novels and scripts. I actually would like to give that a go; I'd like to try to be a writer.

I know well enough that very few people who are supposedly interested in writing are interested in writing well. They are interested in publishing something, and if possible in making a "killing." They are interested in being a writer not in writing. . . If this is what you are interested in, I am not going to be much use to you.

Every writer secretly hopes that what he or she has written will endure.

I'm a compulsive storyteller, an avid reader, and have always nurtured the secret goal of spending my life as a writer.

Journalists don't retire, writers don't retire. I'm still hoping for that other big story. There's always one just around the corner.

I always knew I was a writer. And I always thought to myself, 'Well, why not me?' Someone has to be on the best-seller list, 'Why not me?' Someone has to write for the 'New Yorker,' 'Why not me?' And I didn't really get much positive reinforcement as a kid, so I thought, 'Well let me show you what I can do.'

I knew from the age of seven that I was meant to be a writer.

It's what all writers dream of, that our work finds a measure of immortality that long outlives the words of any critic.