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I am a writer, and the duty of a writer is not only to furnish pleasant pursuits for the mind and taste: he will be held accountable if things useful to the soul are not disseminated by his works and if nothing remains after him as a precept for mankind.


Nikolai Gogol

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SOTONYE ANGA If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows an...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY Now a slave is not 'held' by any legal contract, obligation, duty, or authority, which the l...
LYSANDER SPOONER Every novel which is truly written contributes to the total of knowledge which is there at the dispo...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a c...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fa...
ROALD DAHL Life is not a game. Still, in this life, we choose the games we live to play.
J.R. RIM History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN He's for you and wants to help you be the person He created you to be.
CRAIG GROESCHEL If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows a...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY I thought I would write a love letter. But then, I wrote a book." - Suzy Davies, on "Johari's Window
SUZY DAVIES A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workin...
LEO TOLSTOY A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workin...
LEO NIKOLAEVICH TOLSTOY The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind happiness
not always...
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI I will not call that person happy who knows no rest because of his enemies, who is the butt of fun b...
MUNSHI PREMCHAND if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI Kerouac and I are not real at all. The only thing about a writer is that he has written, and not his...
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS A scene should be selected by the writer for haunted-ness-of-mind interest.
If you're not haun...
JACK KEROUAC Not only will you be held accountable for the things you do, but you will be held responsible for th...
KARL G. MAESER Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long sinc...
IMMANUEL KANT On the 'Star,' you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. This is usef...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY I think taste is a social concept and not an artistic one. I'm willing to show good taste, if I can,...
JOHN UPDIKE If you’re a writer, your first duty, a duty you owe to yourself and your readers, and to your writ...
THEODORA GOSS I feel so honored to be able to say "What I do is for my son" without that being an excuse to do stu...
C. JOYBELL C. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master e...
ROALD DAHL A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a ...
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFóN If you have problems of conduct that are difficult and hard to settle, I will furnish you with solut...
APOLLONIUS OF TYANA A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, ...
WILLIAM MORRIS We are citizens of an age, as well as of a State; and if it is held to be unseemly, or even inadmiss...
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER I am convinced that anyone can be a great writer . . . if he can only . . . tell the naked truth abo...
CLIVE BARNES I like the idea of a writer being haunted by his own creation, especially if the writer resents the ...
BRET EASTON ELLIS In the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you ...
DORIS LESSING If God give you strength and courage, don't use it to intimidate people or overpower them, rather us...
ANTHONY LICCIONE Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is writ...
VIRGINIA WOOLF I am not in pursuit of wealth, neither am I in want of fame! I am not after applauds that shall turn...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. ...
WILLIAM FAULKNER If you are going to be a writer, you have to have self-belief, every writer gets rejections, they sa...
ANTHONY HOROWITZ If they are going to take a chance such as this, they are going to be held accountable for their beh...
JANET HORTON If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any numbe...
WILLIAM FAULKNER Not," Swift said firmly, "for all the tea in China."
"That expression has never made sense to m...
LISA KLEYPAS You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.
HENRY JAMES Some people never take a chance and never know what it's like to live life to the full.
CHLOE THURLOW Absoballylutely top hole, wot. A and B the C of D I'd say. . . Above and Beyond the Call of Duty.
BRIAN JACQUES If the writer were more like a reader, he’d be a reader, not a writer. It’s as uncomplicated as ...
JULIAN BARNES That's one thing I like about Hollywood. The writer is there revealed in his ultimate corruption. He...
RAYMOND CHANDLER We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does thing...
STEPHEN FRY I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib...
C. JOYBELL C. This is his life. He basically works for his dietary supplements, to pay for the gym time and for th...
LARRY BENNER Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. Bu...
C.S. LEWIS You're still lovely," Mor said a bit gently.
Elain offered a half smile. "I suppose that war m...
SARAH J. MAAS It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU Plunging in “truths” about God is like walking on the bottom of a sea that is not there, searchi...
MARIANA FULGER A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the wri...
P. L. TRAVERS His life seemed like a deck of cards, and in the midst of all those two’s and three’s someone ha...
TEKOA MANNING I thought that I was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maid, but all the time she was the Stranger, ...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN It's funny, in a way the actor is a writer. It's not like the two things are so separate as ...
SAM SHEPARD Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through yo...
GERMANY KENT How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful.
EVANS G. VALENS Look to your heart and soul first, rather than looking to your head first, when choosing. Rather tha...
JEFFREY R. ANDERSON Don't settle for a normal life. Not when you can enjoy the wonderful weirdness of being who God crea...
CRAIG GROESCHEL There’s a writer for you,” he said. “Knows everything and at the same time he knows nothing.�...
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer. He is a man who has signed a c...
ANTON CHEKHOV He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled...
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several ...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY A person may cause evil to others not only by his action but by his inaction, and in either case he ...
JOHN STUART MILL A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he...
JOHN STUART MILL It's a great pity that things weren't so arranged that an empty head, like an empty stomach, wouldn'...
UNKNOWN To influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn...
OSCAR WILDE A president cannot defend a nation if he is not held accountable to its laws.
DASHANNE STOKES The writer who position is Christian, and probably also the writer whose position is not, will begin...
FLANNERY O'CONNOR To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and tra...
ANDRE GIDE Scepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral also; a chronic atrophy and disease of ...
THOMAS CARLYLE Skepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral also; a chronic atrophy and disease of ...
THOMAS CARLYLE It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net ...
VITA SACKVILLE-WEST The battle is not physical, it is spiritual and your mind is the battleground. Keep your mind pure a...
JEANETTE CORON A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, ...
WILLIAM MORRIS Whatever the word "great" means, Dickens was what it means. Even the fastidious and unhappy who cann...
G.K. CHESTERTON I would probably work with Drake as he is massively inspirational to me as a writer as well as an ar...
CONOR MAYNARD If I am to be fallen into love, I will. And if as a result I will appear to be stupid, disillusioned...
C. JOYBELL C. Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He ...
GORE VIDAL Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consi...
J.R.R. TOLKIEN Shortly after the new CBA was announced, Sean Burke was the goaltender we identified as we began for...
JAY FEASTER Writing is a lonely job. Even if a writer socializes regularly, when he gets down to the real busine...
ISAAC ASIMOV If the unexamined life is not worth living, the unexamined past is not worth possessing; it bears fr...
BRENDAN GILL Human is naturally born as vegetarian. By forgetting that truth when a human kills, by himself or by...
CHANDRABABU V.S. In a day and age where it seems like women want to be with unstable, psychotic, manipulative freaks;...
C. JOYBELL C. I'm a writer! If you work in an office, it dampens you. It makes you fit a routine. The effect o...
MARK HADDON To be clear is the first duty of a writer; to charm and to please are graces to be acquired later
BRANDER MATTHEWS The issue isn't whether he loved you, it's how much. Too much. Love can be poison
SARAH J. MAAS I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belong to you.
SARAH J. MAAS He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain...
SARAH J. MAAS Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold ...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Hodor," said Hodor.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN You do what you love, what you need
SARAH J. MAAS I turned.
Rhysand leaned against the archway into the sitting room, arms crossed, wings nowhere...
SARAH J. MAAS A great writer creates a world of his own and his readers are proud to live in it. A lesser writer m...
CYRIL CONNOLLY

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NIKOLAI GOGOL They're thinking of turning the peasant into an educated man. Why, first of all they should make...
NIKOLAI GOGOL It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry
NIKOLAI GOGOL ...all this convinced him that he had come to one of those revolting havens where pathetic depravity...
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NIKOLAI GOGOL He granted its due share to everything equally, drawing from everything only what was beautiful in i...
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NIKOLAI GOGOL Wonderful, darling Oksana, allow me to kiss you!" the encouraged blacksmith said and pressed her to ...
NIKOLAI GOGOL The “laughter through tears of sorrow” that Pushkin noted elsewhere in his work is precisely lau...
NIKOLAI GOGOL I've long suspected dogs of being much smarter than people; I was even certain they could speak, but...
NIKOLAI GOGOL But, along with the street lamp, everything breathes deceit. It lies all the time, this Nevsky Prosp...
NIKOLAI GOGOL He was no stranger to compassion: his heart was open to many good impulses, though his rank often pr...
NIKOLAI GOGOL He never looks you straight in the eye; or if he does, it is somehow vaguely, indefinitely; he does ...
NIKOLAI GOGOL That same moment he ordered the hateful portrait taken out. But that did not calm his inner agitatio...
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NIKOLAI GOGOL I am who I am and that's who I am
NIKOLAI GOGOL If you have not first pondered the entire situation of the man whom you wish to help, and if you hav...
NIKOLAI GOGOL Turn round, my boy! How ridiculous you look! What sort of a priest's cassock have you got on? Does e...
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NIKOLAI GOGOL The Lord grant we may all be tillers of the soil.
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NIKOLAI VLASOV We have to understand that all of Africa is infected. The spread of the virus is wider than we can s...
NIKOLAI VLASOV I think that the English once more find themselves in the awkward situation, to put it mildly, of de...
NIKOLAI KOVALYOV The lunar project is aimed at recovering resources such as helium-3.
NIKOLAI SEVASTYANOV The use of the existing rockets will help reduce the program's costs and lower risks.
NIKOLAI SEVASTYANOV The question of bread for myself is a material question, but the question of bread for my neighbor i...
NIKOLAI BORDYAEV I think it's safe now to call him a cosmonaut.
NIKOLAI SEVASTYANOV I like what the Blackhawks have done in the last five days,
NIKOLAI KHABIBULIN I like the direction this team is going in and I'm very happy to be part of it, ... I like what the ...
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NIKOLAI KHABIBULIN Officials could see how the tough rhetoric resonated in society during the gas war with Ukraine last...
NIKOLAI PETROV We're pretty much taking all the songs that have worked the best in the past and we're using those a...
NIKOLAI FRAITURE We should solve the issue of the certification of football stadiums in order to ensure the security ...
NIKOLAI PERSHUTKIN There's really nothing to prove.
NIKOLAI MOROZOV I have strong doubts that this organization will be able to transform itself in the near future and ...
NIKOLAI LOZOVIK The Blackhawks had the best offer. They have some young talent. I've won the Stanley Cup and I want ...
NIKOLAI KHABIBULIN There are chances of a peaceful solution to the Iranian problem.
NIKOLAI SPASSKY It is not the right time to relax. The following fights will be much harder so it is necessary to tr...
NIKOLAI VALUEV I think that the court was able to sort out a complicated criminal case and made a fair decision.
NIKOLAI VLASOV History is fond of her grandchildren, for it offers them the marrow of the bones, which the previous...
NIKOLAI GAVRILOVICH CHERNYSHEVSKY Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.
NIKOLAI A. BERDYAEV It's a catastrophe for us. We are not going to start some special process, no appeals so far. ... He...
DR. NIKOLAI DURMANOV This was 100 percent the physician's mistake.
DR. NIKOLAI DURMANOV