To me, the most beautiful word in the English language is cellar-door. Isn’t it wonderful? The ones I like, though, are “cheque” and “enclosed.”
​Dorothy Parker
Born August 22, 1893

Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.
​H. P. Lovecraft
Born August 20, 1890

I am not altogether confident of my ability to put my thoughts into words: My texts are usually better after an editor has hacked away at them, and I am used to both editing and being edited. Which is to say that I am not oversensitive in such matters.
​Stieg Larsson
Born on August 15, 1954

I'm not sure that it's possible to write a novel about people who don't transgress or stumble, people who don't surprise themselves with the things they do, people who can explain all their actions with perfect logical consistency. At least it's not possible for me to write that sort of novel.
​Tom Perrotta
Born August 13, 1961

Writing is agony for me. I work at it eight hours every day, hoping to get six pages, but I am satisfied with three.
​Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Born August 8, 1896

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
​Herman Melville
​Born August 1, 1819

If you can't write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don't have a clear idea.
​David Belasco
Born July 25, 1853

The greatest texts, I think, first dazzle, then with careful rereading, they instruct. I have learned from Virginia Woolf more than I even know how to articulate.
​Lauren Groff
Born July 23, 1978

There are two kinds of marriages—where the husband quotes the wife and where the wife quotes the husband.
​Clifford Odets
Born July 18, 1906

I find writing very difficult. It's hard and it hurts sometimes, and it's scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities.
​Tony Kushner
Born July 16, 1956

One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
​E. B. White
Born July 11, 1899

The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think.
​June Jordan
Born July 9, 1936

One of the things you hope you've done as a playwright is create roles that can sustain different interpretations.
Tracy Letts
Born July 4, 1965

“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
From Siddhartha By Herman Hesse 
Born July 2, 1877

The American landscape has no foreground and the American mind no background.
​Edith Wharton
​Born January 24, 1862

No man,
Til thirty,  should perceive there’s a
plain woman.

​Lord Byron
Born January 22, 1788

All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise: therefore, if you choose to use the bad, or those which tend to evil till they become your masters, and neglect the good till they dwindle away, you have only yourself to blame.
​Anne Brontë
​Born January 17, 1820

I just loved jokes so much as a child. I remember wanting to perform at, like . . . age seven by reading from a kids’ joke book, and my parents being like, “That's not what standup comedy is,” and me being like, “Not yet it isn't! I'm going to change the game.”
​Josh Gondelman
Born January 15, 1985

Money makes people bold and cosmopolitan; if you are poor, you are naturally conservative. It's not easy to be a bohemian when you have to worry about what is going to happen with you and with your next paycheck.
​Antonio Muñoz Molina
Born on January 10, 1956

When I was on the bestseller list with the first book, everyone who knows me knows that every week it continued to be on the list was a very dark week for me. Everyone knows that all I wanted was to be off that list.
​Dave Eggers
Born on January 8, 1970

You must never lose that touch of childishness. You need it if you wish to write for children, if you wish to understand the heart of a child. Children are good, you see. And they expect good.
​Carolyn Haywood
Born January 3, 1898

I never felt comfortable with myself, because I was never part of the majority. I always felt awkward and shy and on the outside of the momentum of my friends' lives.
​Steven Spielberg
Born on December 18, 1947

Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys.
​Emma Bull
Born December 13, 1954

Great artists have no country.
​Alfred de Musset
Born December 11, 1810

The thing about having a very young audience in the theatre is that sometimes they laugh at the bullying scenes. It's really interesting, what that means. It still confuses me slightly, you know; someone's getting quite brutally bullied on stage and people are laughing. I think it's very hard being young.
​Jack Thorne
Born December 6, 1978