Friends are people not bound to you by accident of birth, legal documents or vows recited before clergy, but a connectedness that endures solely within the heart.  Treasure them because they’re allowed to replace you.
​Laura Pedersen,  American Author & Playwright
Author of Going Away Party: A Novel
Born October 8, 1965

All art is an intensely vulnerable gesture, and it is made with no small amounts of risk, and fear. So, I have plenty of sympathy for self-defense mechanisms, especially among artists.
​Steven Erikson,  Canadian Novelist
Author of ​The Bonehunters
Born October 7, 1959

The Arkansas River is “the saddest little river / That you ever saw,” sings Stellrita, the Black domestic who dominates the lives of three generations of the family of Zero MacNoo, McGehee’s fictional counterpart in Boys Like Us . . . .“Nobody writes books about it, / Nobody here’s got nothin’ to say. / ’Tain’t ’cause it ain’t worth mentionin’, / It’s just nobody smart stays.” 
—Raymond-Jean Frontain,
 encylopediaofarkansas.net
Sharing work of Peter McGehee, American-Born Canadian Author of Novel and Short Stories
Author of ​Boys Like Us
Born October 6, 1955

With all of the bad things that are happening in the world right now, I think we need a message of togetherness and true unity. I believe that starts with personal reflection and then we can find kindness toward each other.
Marielle Heller,  American Director and Screenwriter
Author of ​Diary of a Teenage Girl
​Born October 1, 1979

Islands are like ships at permanent anchor. To set foot on one is like starting up a gangplank: one is seized by the same feeling of charmed suspension—it seems nothing unkind or vulgar can happen to you . . .
​Truman Capote,  American Novelist and Playwright
Author of ​Other Voices, Other Rooms
Born September 30, 1924

Notebooks allow for all kinds of record-keeping, and I kept one myself as a kid. I was attracted to mixing up words and pictures freely, since that's how I think.
​Marissa Moss,  American Children's Book Author 
Author of ​Amelia's Notebook 
Born September 29, 1959

Fiction is supposed to be immersive and supposed to be entertaining and narrative, so structures have to be buried a little bit. If they come foregrounded too much, it stops being fiction and starts being poetry—something more concrete and out of time.
​Eleanor Catton,  New Zealand Novelist
Author of Birnam Wood
Born September 24, 1985

Good fiction must be entertaining, but what makes fiction special—and True—is that the realness of a novel allows it to carry a larger message.
Jerry B. Jenkins,  American Writer
Author of Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle of the Ages
Born September 23, 1949

I had my success too soon. Three books published with Scribner's in New York before I was thirty. 
​Morley Callaghan, Canadian Novelist &  Playwright
Author of ​That Summer in Paris
Born September 22,  1903 

All I know from my own experience is that the more loss we feel the more grateful we should be for whatever it was we had to lose. It means that we had something worth grieving for. The ones I'm sorry for are the ones that go through life not knowing what grief is. 
​Frank O’Connor,  Irish Author & Translator
Author of ​Guests of the Nation
Born September 17, 1903

Pride defeats its own end, by bringing the man who seeks esteem and reverence into contempt.
Gwen Bristow, American Writer & Journalist 
Author of ​Celia Garth
Born September 16, 1903

America owes most of its social prejudices to the exaggerated religious opinions of the different sects which were so instrumental in establishing the colonies.
​James Fenimore Cooper, 19th Century American Writer
Author of ​The Last of the Mohicans
​Born September 15, 1789

Every famous writer was once an unknown writer. If publishers never published new writers, they wouldn't be publishing anyone at all after a while.
Victoria Strauss,  Writer of Fantasy Novels
Author of ​Worldstone
​Born September 10, 1955

What women have to stand on squarely is not their ability to see the world in the way men see it,  but the importance and validity of their seeing it in some other way.
​Mary Hunter Austin,  American Nature Writer of the Southwest
Author of ​The Land of Little Rain
Born September 9, 1868           

Fortune, who gives and takes away all other human blessings, has no power over courage.
Ludovico Ariosto,  Italian Poet
Author of Orlando Furioso
Born September 8, 1474

In a sense much great literature is subversive, since its very existence implies that what matters is art, imagination, and truth. In what we call the real world, on the other hand, what usually counts is money, power, and public success.
​Alison Lurie,  American Novelist & Academician 
Author of The Truth about Lorin Jones
Born September 3, 1926

There are three terrible ages of childhood—1 to 10, 10 to 20, and 20 to 30.
​Cleveland Amory,  American Reporter & Television Critic 
Author of ​The Cat Who Came for Christmas 
Born September 2,  1917

I suppose I have become a sort of living monument in Portugal. But I come from a family with roots all over the world, so the idea of patriotism is not very strong in me. My country is the country of Chekhov, Beethoven, Velasquez—writers I like, painters and artists I admire. 
Antonio Lobo Antunes,  Portuguese Novelist & Medical Doctor
Author of The Land at the End of the World
Born September 1, 1942

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
​Theodore Dreiser, American Novelist &
Journalist 
Author of An American Tragedy 
Born August 27, 1871

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
Mother Teresa, Nun,  Catholic Saint,  & Nobel Peace Prize
Born August 26, 1910

I’ve always made a living with words. I’m passionate about sharing with others how to pull off a profitable creative life!
Lorraine C. Ladish,  Bilingual Editor & Author
Author of ​Me Siento Gorda (I Feel Fat​)
​Born August 25, 1963

For a story to be told, it must be told properly, and to tell a story properly, it must be told with respect.
​Anne Cameron,  Canadian Novelist, Poet, & Screenwriter
Author of A Whole Brass Band
Born August 20, 1938

Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets them. 
Ogden Nash,  American Poet & Humorist
Author of ​I'm a Stranger Here Myself
Born August 19, 1902

Like all the centuries and the millennia that have preceded it on earth, the new century also observes the well-known, immobile principle of historical dynamics: power to some, servitude to others.
Elsa Morante, Italian Novelist & Poet
Author of ​History
Born August 18, 1918

Many search for happiness as we look for a hate [sic] we wear on our heads.
​Nikolaus Lenau,  Austrian Poet
Author of The Swabian Songbook: A Selection from Classical Swabian Poetry
​Born August 13, 1802