10 Famous Quotes about Writing From Our Favorite Authors

The first of November marks National Author’s Day, we celebrate the works of authors and the tools they use- words. We see words everywhere, but their power is always underestimated. Words are capable of altering our perspectives, shifting our mentalities, changing our lives. And in these quotes, authors themselves identify the power of words.

1. “Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”

 – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

2. “He wanted cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music.”

 – James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 

3. “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.”

 – J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

4. “She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.” 

 – Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

5. “Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can’t tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.”

 – John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

6. “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!

 – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

7. “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

 – George Orwell, 1984

8. “I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.” 

 – Marcus Zusak, The Book Thief

9. “‘Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.’” 

 – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451​

10. “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”

 – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

These quotes beautifully exemplify the impact that reading and writing can have on us. By understanding and acknowledging the tools of writers, we are better able to recognize the importance of authors, and more fully celebrate National Author’s Day!

Images courtesy of Kalysa To and Pexels 

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