Five Great Quotes about the Business of Writing

“There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing – to find honest men to publish it – and to get sensible men to read it.” – Charles Caleb Cotton

“Writers are schizophrenic. On the one hand we tell ourselves, ‘This is a work of genius! I’ve created Art!’ Then we try to peddle it, like a widget, to The New Yorker, Playboy, or SF Age.” – Ken Rand

“Most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks.” – Richard Curtis

“Sir, nobody but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” – Samuel Johnson

“Instead of marveling with Johnson, how anything but profit should incite men to literary labor, I am rather surprised that mere emolument should induce them to labor so well.” – Thomas Green