In Europe first and now in America, elected men have taken it upon themselves to indebt their people to create an atmosphere of dependency. And why? For their own selfish need to increase their own personal power.
Pope FrancisIn my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.
Charles BukowskiI am not a consecutive writer.
Dr. SeussI like being a writer.
Terry PratchettCan anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?
Ralph Waldo EmersonIf you wish to be a writer, write.
EpictetusPoverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.
Lucius Annaeus SenecaA state arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants.
PlatoI am confident that nobody… will accuse me of selfishness if I ask to spend time, while I am still in good health, with my family, my friends and also with myself.
Nelson MandelaEvery man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
Martin Luther King, Jr.I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.
Robert FrostAs far as I’m concerned, I’m a writer who’s writing books, and therefore, I don’t want to die. You’d miss the end of the book wouldn’t you? You can’t die with an unfinished book.
Terry PratchettNext to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.
William Makepeace ThackerayI’m a writer first and a singer second.
Lana Del ReyI’ve been writing since I was really young, so I considered myself a writer for a really long time.
Lana Del ReySome people are painters, and some are ballet dancers, and I’m a writer.
Alice WalkerAll the time, I’ve felt that life is a wager and that I probably was getting more out of leading a bohemian existence as a writer than I would have if I didn’t.
Christopher HitchensThe day when I am no more than a writer I shall cease to be a writer.
Albert CamusA true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.
Joseph AddisonThe writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.
Karl MarxThere are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.
Ernest HemingwayDickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page.
Terry PratchettThe happiness and peace attained by those satisfied by the nectar of spiritual tranquillity is not attained by greedy persons restlessly moving here and there.
ChanakyaMoney is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.
Arthur SchopenhauerIt disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous.
Jean-Paul SartreThat is how you get to be a writer, incidentally: you feel somehow marginal, somehow slightly off-balance all the time.
Kurt VonnegutWe didn’t become the most prosperous country in the world just by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn’t come this far by letting the special interests run wild. We didn’t do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell.
Barack ObamaWe have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.
Pope FrancisYou have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally.
Haruki MurakamiAll these walls that keep us from loving each other as one family or one race – racism, religion, where we grew up, whatever, class, socioeconomic – what makes us be so selfish and prideful, what keeps us from wanting to help the next man, what makes us be so focused on a personal legacy as opposed to the entire legacy of a race.
Kanye WestBefore I became a writer, I was running a jazz bar in the center of Tokyo, which means that I worked in filthy air all the time late into the night. I was very excited when I started making a living out of my writing, and I decided, ‚I will live in nothing but an absolutely healthy way.‘
Haruki MurakamiI don’t go around thinking I’m Ray Bradbury all the time.
Ray BradburyWhere do the evils like corruption arise from? It comes from the never-ending greed. The fight for corruption-free ethical society will have to be fought against this greed and replace it with ‚what can I give‘ spirit.
A. P. J. Abdul KalamI’m a writer, not a professional runner. It’s fun and it helps me write. I need powerful concentration.
Haruki MurakamiI began running on an everyday basis after I became a writer. As being a writer requires sitting at a desk for hours a day, without getting some exercise you’d quickly get out of shape and gain weight, I figured.
Haruki MurakamiAs a writer, as a creator, I’m giving you my experiences. But just take what I give you. You ain’t got to pry beyond that.
Frank OceanWhen a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.
Kurt VonnegutI hope to build a reputation as a science-fiction writer. That’s the pitch. We’ll see.
Kurt VonnegutWe like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it’s all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can’t change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.
Stephen KingThe responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.
James BaldwinIt is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.
DiogenesThe martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.
Florence NightingaleThere is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.
Maya AngelouEvery writer has his writing technique – what he can and can’t do to describe something like war or history. I’m not good at writing about those things, but I try because I feel it is necessary to write that kind of thing.
Haruki MurakamiThe book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was ‚Crime and Punishment‘. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days… I said, ‚If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.‘
Paul AusterYou need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.
Margaret AtwoodI’m happy to be a writer – of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn’t a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.
Maya AngelouWhen writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.
Ernest HemingwayI was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death. They thought nobody can make a living from being a writer in Brazil. They were not wrong.
Paulo CoelhoNext to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.
Bertrand RussellSome desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.
Samuel JohnsonIt was 1996 and I was at a crossroads in my career. I had been working in Hollywood as a writer and was very unhappy. I had pitched an idea for a book some six months earlier, and the book packager, Joost Elffers, wanted me to write up a treatment for it.
Robert GreeneSiren voices tell me, ‚You don’t have to keep going on.‘ And then you think, ‚I’m a writer. What do I do? Sit there watching my wife clean up?‘ I don’t know. I like being a writer.
Terry PratchettBecoming a writer is not a ‚career decision‘ like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don’t choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you’re not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.
Paul AusterIn Hollywood, they think they know it all. You, as a writer, are essentially an outsider. Novelists and short-story writers, especially.
Ray BradburyI don’t think of myself as an artist. I’m just a guy who can write.
Haruki MurakamiI’m a singer, a writer and an actress – when I find something that I feel good enough about doing.
Dolly PartonAny writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.
James BaldwinMen are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.
Niccolo MachiavelliSome critics will write ‚Maya Angelou is a natural writer‘ – which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.
Maya Angelou