The best thing about being a writer is it gives you readers who understand your deepest feelings and fears.
​Katherine Paterson
Author of Bridge to Terabithia
Born October 31, 1932

A pig resembles a saint in that he is more honored after death than during his lifetime.
​Irma S. Rombauer
​Author of The Joy of Cooking
Born October 30, 1877

Rhetoric is the art or the discipline that deals with the use of discourse, either spoken or written, to inform or persuade or move an audience, whether that audience is made up of a single person or a group of persons.
Edward P. J. Corbett  
Author of Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student
Born October 29, 1919

A WRITER'S WIT
Novels are not about expressing yourself, they're about something beautiful, funny, clever and organic. Self-expression? Go and ring a bell in a yard if you want to express yourself.
Zadie Smith
Author of White Teeth
Born October 25, 1975

I like to believe, as a writer, that anybody who isn't a reader yet has just not found the right book.
​Gabrielle Zevin
Author of Young Jane Young
Born October 24, 1977

In India, it's the rich who have problems with obesity. And the poor are darker-skinned because they work outside and often work without their tops on so you can see their ribs.
Aravind Adiga
Author of Amnesty
Born October 23, 1974

My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers—it's what my children call my “dead author wall.” I have signatures from Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Jack London, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Pearl Buck, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to name a few.
​Debbie Macomber
​Author of 16 Lighthouse Road
Born October 22, 1948

A WRITER'S WIT
Any writer worth the name is always getting into one thing or getting out of another thing.
Fannie Hurst
Author of Imitation of Life
Born October 18, 1885

My narrators tend to be women with low self-esteem, so I can send them to charm school.
​Elinor Lipman
Author of Ms. Demeanor
Born October 17, 1950

My own special knowledge is about the Abenaki people and, to some degree, my Iroquois neighbors. But whenever I write anything about another tribal nation, I always get a lot of help. Not just from books, but from people who belong to that tribal nation.
​Joseph Bruchac
Author of Two Roads
Born October 16, 1942

I try to move inside what is happening around us. The world of pure science doesn’t provide me with enough of an ability to see fully. If the reader looks, I think he will find plenty of moral and political ideas in my stories. I suffer from everyday life. When I’m depressed, I start with some euphoric image that transmits itself.
​Italo Calvino
Author of If on a Winter's Night
Born October 15, 1923

A WRITER'S WIT
It's very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.
​Thich Nhat Hanh
Author of ​The Miracle of Mindfulness
​Born October 11, 1926

Life is not only full of sound and fury. It also has butterflies, flowers,  art.
Claude Simon
Author of The Flanders Road
Born October 10, 1913

For me, the difference between an “ordinary” and an “extraordinary” person is not the title that person might have, but what they do to make the world a better place for us all. 
​Jody Williams 
Author of My Name Is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl's Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize
​Winner of Nobel Peace Prize, 1997
Born October 9, 1950

If a person lives long enough he or she has regrets, but the worst ones are where you had a choice.
Laura Pedersen
Author of A Theory of Everything
Born October 8, 1965 

A WRITER'S WIT
To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself.
​Anne Rice
Author of The Wolves of Midwinter
Born October 4, 1941

Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father’s heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?
Thomas Wolfe
Author of You Can't Go Home Again
Born October 3, 1900

If you want to rip the heart out of a democracy, you go after the facts. That's what modern authoritarians do. You lie. All the time. Then, you say it's your opponents and the journalists who lie.
​Maria Ressa,  American & Filipino Journalist
Author of How to Stand Up to a Dictator
Born October 2, 1963

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
​Jimmy Carter
Author of Why Not the Best?
​Born October 1, 1924