Authorship Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings

25 Authorship Quotes
[1-25] 
“The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals; or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves.”
Joseph Addison Quotes
Source: in the "Spectator", no. 166
“The book that he has made renders its author this service in return, that so long as the book survives, its author remains immortal and cannot die.”
Richard Aungervyle (Aungerville) (a/k/a Richard de Bury) Quotes
Source: Philobiblon (ch. I, 21)
“Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear Glean after what it can.”
Philip James Bailey Quotes
Source: Festus (sc. Home)
“Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw more from them as wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and bones.”
Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
Source: Star Papers--Oxford--Bodleian Library
“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars; Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills.”
Bible Quotes
Source: Jeremiah (ch. XVII, v. 1-2)
“There is probably no hell for authors in the next world--they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.”
Christian Nestell Bovee Quotes
Source: Summaries of Thought--Authors
“He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who writes verses builds it in granite. - Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,”
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton Quotes
Source: Caxtoniana--Essay XXVII--The Spirit of Conservation
“No author ever drew a character, consistent to human nature, but what he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies.”
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton Quotes
Source: What Will He Do With It? (bk. IV, ch. XIV, heading)
“As so I penned It down, until at last it came to be, For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.”
John Bunyan Quotes
Source: Pilgrim's Progress--Apology for his Book
“Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.”
Edmund Burke Quotes
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
“And force them, though it was in spite Of Nature and their stars, to write.”
Samuel Butler (1) Quotes
Source: Hudibras (pt. I, canto I, l. 647)
“But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.”
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron) Quotes
Source: Don Juan (canto III, st. 88)
“But every fool describes, in these bright days, His wondrous journey to some foreign court, And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise,-- Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport.”
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron) Quotes
Source: Don Juan (canto V, st. 52)
“And hold up to the sun my little taper.”
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron) Quotes
Source: Don Juan (canto XII, st. 21)
“Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length; Nor lift your lad, before you're quite aware What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.”
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron) Quotes
Source: Hints from Horace (l. 59)
“Will you have all in all for prose and verse? Take the miracle of our age, Sir Philip Sidney.”
Richard Carew Quotes
Source: in William Camden's "Remains concerning Britain" (1614)
“The pen is the tongue of the mind. [Sp., La pluma es lengua del alma.]”
Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra) Quotes
Source: Don Quixote (V, 16)
“Apt Alliteration's artful aid.”
Charles Churchill Quotes
Source: The Prophecy of Famine (l. 86)
“That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time.”
Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
Source: Lacon (preface)
“None but an author knows an author's cares, Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears.”
William Cowper Quotes
Source: The Progress of Error (l. 518)
“Habits of close attention, thinking heads, Become more rare as dissipation spreads, Till authors hear at length one general cry Tickle and entertain us, or we die!”
William Cowper Quotes
Source: Retirement (l. 707)
“So that the jest is clearly to be seen, Not in the words--but in the gap between; Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ, The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.”
William Cowper Quotes
Source: Table Talk (l. 540)
“Oh! rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain; Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun.”
George Crabbe Quotes
Source: The Parish Register (pt. I, introduction)
“No call has ever poisoned by pen. [Fr., Aucun fiel n'a jamais empoisonne ma plumme.]”
Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon Quotes
Source: Discours de Reception
“Smelling of the lamp.”
Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon Quotes
Source: Discours de Reception