Writer's Duty Quotes

In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.

A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer.

Lying is the misuse of language. We know that. We need to remember that it works the other way round too. Even with the best intentions, language misused, language used stupidly, carelessly, brutally, language used wrongly, breeds lies, half-truths, confusion. In that sense you can say that grammar is morality. And it is in that sense that I say a writer's first duty is to use language well.

When you're a writer, you have to write these stories, even if you don't get paid

You can't argue with someone who believes, or just passionately suspects, that the poet's function is not to write what he must write but, rather, to write what he would write if his life depended on his taking responsibility for writing what he must in a style designed to shut out as few of his old librarians as humanly possible.

A writer will not keep quiet. He will express his opinion through writings.

The moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home: to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own government, his own culture. The more freedom the writer possesses, the greater the moral obligation to play the role of critic.

If somebody writes a book and doesn't care for the survival of that book, he's an imbecile.

The writer has no responsibility other than to jack off in bed alone and write a good page.

The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.

A writer should care about one thing - the language. To write well - that is his duty. That is his only duty.

But it is a writer's duty to write and speak and record the truth, always the truth, no matter whom may be offended.

I'm not writing to encourage people to read my book or even books in general. That's not my job. My job is to write them. And if people want to read them, that's great.

When an honest writer discovers an imposition it is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down from its place of honor, no matter who suffers by it; any other course would render him unworthy of the public confidence.

But we should ask the question: Why should a writer be more than a writer? Why should a writer be a guru? Why are we supposed to be psychiatrists? Isn't it enough to write and tell the truth? It's not like telling the truth is common. Writers are the earthworms of society. We aerate the soil. That's enough.

A writer's duty is to register what it is like for him or her to be in the world.

I have always felt that the first duty of a writer was to ascend - to make flights, carrying others along if you can manage it. To do this takes courage, even a certain conceit.

The writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I think that’s part of the moral obligation of a writer, which cannot be only purely artistic. I think a writer has some kind of responsibility at least to participate in the civic debate. I think literature is impoverished, if it becomes cut from the main agenda of people, of society, of life.

Writers of fiction should stick to writing, not pop up on panel shows or as a talking head.

The fact of the matter is I always have a really high sense of responsibility to the reader, whether it's a few readers that I get or a lot of readers, which I was lucky enough to get with 'Olive.' I feel responsible to them, to deliver something as truthful and straight as I can.

It’s as much a writer’s concern, who is responsible to his readers for all the books written before him as well as those which will be written after him.

The writer's duty is to keep on writing.

To struggle against censorship, whatever its nature, and whatever the power under which it exists, is my duty as a writer, as are calls for freedom of the press. I am a passionate supporter of that freedom, and I consider that if any writer were to imagine that he could prove he didn't need that freedom, then he would be like a fish affirming in public that it didn't need water.

The first obligation of the writer is to be interesting. To be interesting; not to change the world.

To call someone like me a writer-activist suggests that it's not the job of a writer to write about the society in which they live. But it used to be our job.