A man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a figleaf.
​Mark Twain
Author of ​Life on the Mississippi
​Born November 30, 1835

I always write my first draft in longhand, in lined notebooks. I move around the house, sitting where I like, and watch the words spool out in front of me, actually taking a lot of pleasure in the way they look in my strange handwriting on the page.
​Sue Miller
Author of ​The Lake Shore Limited
​Born November 29, 1943

A WRITER'S WIT
Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy—which many believe goes hand in hand with it—will be dead as well.
​Margaret Atwood
Author of ​The Handmaid's Tale
​Born November 18, 1939

If we cannot see the possibility of greatness, how can we dream it?
​Lee Strasberg
Author of ​A Dream of Passion
​Born November 17, 1901

At dramatic rehearsals, the only author that's better than an absent one is a dead one. 
​George S. Kaufman
Playwright: You Can't Take It with You
Born November 16, 1889

Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.
Georgia ​O’Keeffe 
Visual Artist: Oriental Poppies
Born November 15, 1887

A WRITER'S WIT
The only way to know what is possible is to venture past impossible.
​Mary Gaitskill
Author of ​This Is Pleasure
​Born November 11, 1954

When I'm writing a novel, I'm dealing with a double life. I live in the present at the same time that I live in the past with my characters. It is this that makes a novelist so eccentric and unpleasant.
John P. Marquand
Author of ​Point of No Return
​Born November 10, 1893

The history of the last century shows, as we shall see later, that the advice given to governments by bankers, like the advice they gave to industrialists, was consistently good for bankers, but was often disastrous for governments, businessmen, and the people generally.
​Carroll Quigley
Author of ​A Tragedy of Hope
​Born November 9, 1910

Because music is a language unto itself, when I'm writing, I need silence. I need to hear the music and the rhythms of the words inside my thoughts.
​Marianne Wiggins
Author of ​Properties of Thirst
​Born November 8, 1947

A WRITER'S WIT
I'm not an artist. I tell inappropriate stories and jokes and I try to make people laugh.
​Kathy Griffin
For Your Consideration (CD)
​Born November 4, 1960

Color tends to corrupt photography and absolute color corrupts it absolutely. Consider the way color film usually renders blue sky, green foliage, lipstick red, and the kiddies' playsuit. These are four simple words which must be whispered: color photography is vulgar.
​Walker Evans
Author of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
​Born November 3, 1903

Of all Americans who have appeared on the nation's postage stamps, Ayn Rand is probably the only one to have thought that the United States government has no business delivering mail. 
​Thomas Mallon
Author of Fellow Travelers 
​Born November 2, 1951

I think motherhood has made issues all feel much more urgent than they did before. So it didn't necessarily change how I feel about certain things—it just fired me up to be even more active on behalf of my daughter.
​Jessica Valenti
Author of ​The Purity Myth
​Born November 1, 1978