For me to be a billion-dollar author, I need to have people buying my books at Wal-Mart.

- Amanda Hocking

When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.

- Blaise Pascal

Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they're rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.

- Bill Gates

There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.

- Bill Gates

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

- Benjamin Disraeli

I'm a journalist and author. I make my living by finding things out and writing about them.

- Barton Gellman

I think that every so-called history book and film biography should be prefaced by the statement that what follows is the author's rendition of events and circumstances.

- Barbara Kruger

When a character bears the same name as the author it's just an invitation to have some fun.

- Arthur Phillips

I really believe we read differently when we know even the most banal facts of an author's life.

- Anne Michaels

A novel is, hopefully, the starting point of a conversation, one in which the author engages readers and asks that they see things from a different point of view than they might otherwise.

- Anne Fortier

English food writer Elizabeth David, cook and author Richard Olney and the owner of Domaine Tempier Lulu Peyraud have all really inspired the way I think about food.

- Alice Waters

Choose an author as you choose a friend.

- Arthur Helps

My favourite author is Leon Trotsky - the political philosophy and the way he writes is beautiful, and really relevant, too.

- Andrej Pejic

A bad author can take the most moral issue and make you want to just never, ever think about that moral issue.

- Azar Nafisi

An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.

- Anthony Trollope

I was a very happy banker, but I feel happier as an author.

- Amish Tripathi

People really want to think that these things really happened. I don't know why that important, but I know that when I finish reading a novel or something, I want to know how much of that really happened to this author.

- Alison Bechdel

Any author of fiction will tell you that characters don't need to be told what to do.

- Alexander McCall Smith

The book may be garbage, but if it weighs in at a kilo or more, I stand before its author in awe.

- Arthur Smith

As a children's author, reviewers are generally very nice to you. I only ever wrote one adult book and received such a kicking for it that I was in trauma for the next six months.

- Anthony Horowitz