Top 62 Quotes by James Salter

About James Salter

These are some quotes by American author James Salter Novelist, who lived between June 10, 1925 and June 19, 2015.

You have your brains, but it's energy and desire that make you write a book.

You have your brains, but it's energy and desire that make you write a book.

James Salter

The publishers, as I remember at the very beginning of my career, wrote letters with their fountain pens. A letter is different from a phone call or fax. It's a different kind of intimacy. That pervaded the entire business of writing and publishing.

James Salter

It's possible of course, especially when you're young, to read a book and take it to your heart. And you don't need to speak to anybody about it - it's so important to you: You have found it.

It's possible of course, especially when you're young, to read a book and take it to your heart. And you don't need to speak to anybody about it - it's so important to you: You have found it.

James Salter

I don't fear death. I'm not obsessed with it the way everybody else seems to be.

I don't fear death. I'm not obsessed with it the way everybody else seems to be.

James Salter

My idea of writing is of unflinching and continual effort, somehow trying to find the right words until you reach a point where you can make no further progress and you either have something or you don't.

James Salter

I have said many times I don't want to be considered one who once flew fighters. That's not who I am. I devoted the subsequent 50 years - more - to writing.

I have said many times I don't want to be considered one who once flew fighters. That's not who I am. I devoted the subsequent 50 years - more - to writing.

James Salter

You can't be admitted to the ranks of writers of importance unless you have sales.

You can't be admitted to the ranks of writers of importance unless you have sales.

James Salter

If you write enough, you begin to learn to do things. But in a way, you do start from zero each time.

If you write enough, you begin to learn to do things. But in a way, you do start from zero each time.

James Salter

People have reflected on the quality of time ever since they've been writing. I suppose I have thought about and written about the question of living in the present - but it only lasts for an instant, and then everything becomes the past. The future, you know nothing about, except for some anticipations you have.

James Salter

There is no situation like the open road, and seeing things completely afresh. I'm used to traveling. It's not a question of meeting or seeing new faces particularly, or hearing new stories, but of looking at life in a different way. It's the curtain coming up on another act.

James Salter

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