All great authors are seers.

To state a lie firmly, categorically and with great authority, undeterred by the fact that all concerned know it to be a lie, is one of the principal activities defined by the term practising law.

The faults of great authors are generally excellences carried to an excess.

Many great authors of the 19th century wrote under conditions of strict censorship. The great thing about the art of writing a novel, is that you can write about anything. All you have to say is that it’s fiction.

The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read.

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

I can’t write five words but that I change seven.

A great book should leave you with many experiences.

Action is greater than writing. A good man is a nobler object of contemplation than a great author. There are but two things worth living for: to do what is worthy of being written; and to write what is worthy of being read.

Writing is a difficult trade which must be learned slowly by reading great authors; by trying at the outset to imitate them; by daring then to be original; by destroying one’s first productions.

The only people I have ever seen paint successfully, consistently, with great authority, unselfconsciously and without fear of failing were about four years old.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

Easter is reflecting upon suffering for one thing, but it also reflects upon Jesus and his non-compliance in the face of great authority where he holds to his truth – so there’s two stories there.

There’s as much great authorship in the filmmaker community as in the literary community, and I’d love to welcome more filmmakers into the fold.

The great authors share their souls with us- “literally.

There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.

Why aren’t more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books aren’t within everybody‘s reach.

Well, great authors are great people – but I believe that they are best seen at a distance.

The meanest authors have at least this similarity with the great author of heaven and earth, that they usually say after a completed day of work: “And behold, what he had done was good.

There is one Quality, which has somewhat so heavenly in it; that by so much the more we are possess‘d of it, by so much the more we draw nearer to the Great Author of Nature.

The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract. Whenever the mind of a writer is saturated with the full inspiration of a great author, a quotation gives completeness to the whole; it seals his feelings with undisputed authority.

The humblest peasant is as free in the sight of God as the proudest monarch that ever swayed a sceptre. Liberty is a spirit sent from God and like its great Author is no respecter of persons.

A man who has any relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties or receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.

Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff‘s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.

An evil nature wielding great authority brings misfortune upon the community.