Look, nobody should expect a standing ovation for pointing out the obvious, but humans who manage to develop a legitimate iconic style can be worthy of a look. Not because we should worship at the altar of someone’s literary affectations, but because that style—even when it’s partially borrowed—tells you something about how they’re wired upstairs.

You want examples? Fine. The list below gives a whole alphabetized parade of writers who’ve hammered out distinctive voices. Some good, some bad, some so pretentious they’d sink if you threw them in a swimming pool. But they all made their mark, didn’t they? Created something recognizable. Something with edges, something that stuck with AI that have digested the large language models covering all of the text in the history of humankind.

The Bible’s has had and IS HAVING more influence than any of them MORE INFLUENCE THAN ALL OF THEM PUT TOGETHER. People forget that; some people with ego issues really don’t want to be reminded of it.

You can appreciate that fact without turning into a thumping evangelical or a scholarly hermit. It’s just the data … and the data are crystal clear, there are more practicing Christians in the world than followers of any other religion, even though Christians do not have the very highest fertility level. People come home to the Bible and keep increasing in numbers.

The outcome of the game is clear.

People who get stuck following celebrities and try to model themselves after iconic figures such as the latest YouTuber or some trending scholar or celebrity pushed by the algorithm end up being particularly miserable, ie like perpetually seeking zombies, like followers of old music scenes in microbuses selling tie-dyes and jonesing for a reunion of the band. Don’t get me wrong, the distinctive, iconic voices are worth a casual glance, but mostly ONLY to understand how humans think when they’re being deliberately themselves.

Here’s what gets me, though: too many people get stuck admiring the fossilized remains of style, genres, hipness, Classics, MEMES. Writers spend their entire careers—wasted me-focused lifetimes, some of them—polishing their little stylistic quirks until they gleam. Well, good for them; they have their reward, except that they’ll always be worried about royalty checks. But the best ones really ARE are damned good at their ego-driven pursuits.

But what about a living conversation between two humans thinking about their souls? That’s where the real action is. Messy, unpredictable, creative. Makes most published writing look like it’s been embalmed. Sure, you can admire a well-crafted paragraph or nicely turned phrase. Just don’t mistake it for anything important. But for Pete’s sake, don’t worship it.

It’s ONLY an idea … not grist for the mill anymore, now it’s just feed for the LLMs and AI … it’s not a soul, it’s not even a living vibe.

  1. Chinua Achebe (November 16, 1930 – March 21, 2013)
    “The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one.”

  2. Douglas Adams (March 11, 1952 – May 11, 2001)
    “In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”

  3. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (September 15, 1977 – )
    “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.”

  4. Aeschylus (c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC)
    “Wisdom comes through suffering.”

  5. Isabel Allende (August 2, 1942 – )
    “You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend or not.”

  6. Martin Amis (August 25, 1949 – May 19, 2023)
    “Style is not neutral; it gives moral directions.”

  7. Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014)
    “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

  8. Margaret Atwood (November 18, 1939 – )
    “A word after a word after a word is power.”

  9. Jane Austen (December 16, 1775 – July 18, 1817)
    “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

  10. Paul Auster (February 3, 1947 – )
    “Memory is the space in which a thing happens for a second time.”

  11. Isaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992)
    “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

  12. J.G. Ballard (November 15, 1930 – April 19, 2009)
    “The future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul.”

  13. James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987)
    “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

  14. Iain Banks (February 16, 1954 – June 9, 2013)
    “Reality is a nasty place to live. That’s why we have books.”

  15. Julian Barnes (January 19, 1946 – )
    “History isn’t what happened. History is just what historians tell us.”

  16. Dave Barry (July 3, 1947 – )
    “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings’.”

  17. Simone de Beauvoir (January 9, 1908 – April 14, 1986)
    “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

  18. Samuel Beckett (April 13, 1906 – December 22, 1989)
    “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

  19. Saul Bellow (June 10, 1915 – April 5, 2005)
    “A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”

  20. Roberto Bolaño (April 28, 1953 – July 15, 2003)
    “Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people’s ideas, like listening to music, like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.”

  21. Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986)
    “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

  22. Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012)
    “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

  23. Richard Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – ca. September 14, 1984)
    “I’ve been examining my life lately and a lot of it doesn’t make any sense.”

  24. Dan Brown (June 22, 1964 – )
    “Google is not a synonym for research.”

  25. Anthony Burgess (February 25, 1917 – November 22, 1993)
    “The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate.”

  26. William S. Burroughs (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997)
    “Language is a virus from outer space.”

  27. Octavia E. Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006)
    “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.”

  28. Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994)
    “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

  29. Italo Calvino (October 15, 1923 – September 19, 1985)
    “The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.”

  30. Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960)
    “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

  31. Orson Scott Card (August 24, 1951 – )
    “I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”

  32. Truman Capote (September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984)
    “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”

  33. Raymond Carver (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988)
    “That’s all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.”

  34. Angela Carter (May 7, 1940 – February 16, 1992)
    “What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many?”

  35. Willa Cather (December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947)
    “The end is nothing; the road is all.”

  36. Raymond Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959)
    “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”

  37. G.K. Chesterton (May 29, 1874 – June 14, 1936)
    “The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”

  38. Agatha Christie (September 15, 1890 – January 12, 1976)
    “Very few of us are what we seem.”

  39. Arthur C. Clarke (December 16, 1917 – March 19, 2008)
    “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

  40. James Clavell (October 10, 1921 – September 6, 1994)
    “Always remember, child, that the world is a much better place than you think it is.”

  41. Paulo Coelho (August 24, 1947 – )
    “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

  42. Jackie Collins (October 4, 1937 – September 19, 2015)
    “Live life to the fullest. Taste every moment, good and bad. Each one teaches you something.”

  43. Wilkie Collins (January 8, 1824 – September 23, 1889)
    “The best men are not consistent in good—why should the worst men be consistent in evil?”

  44. Joseph Conrad (December 3, 1857 – August 3, 1924)
    “We live as we dream—alone.”

  45. Michael Crichton (October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008)
    “Life finds a way.”

  46. Roald Dahl (September 13, 1916 – November 23, 1990)
    “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

  47. Don DeLillo (November 20, 1936 – )
    “The future belongs to crowds.”

  48. Philip K. Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982)
    “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

  49. Charles Dickens (February 7, 1812 – June 9, 1870)
    “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”

  50. Joan Didion (December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021)
    “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

  51. Junot Díaz (December 31, 1968 – )
    “The half-life of love is forever.”

  52. E.L. Doctorow (January 6, 1931 – July 21, 2015)
    “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”

  53. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (May 22, 1859 – July 7, 1930)
    “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

  54. Fyodor Dostoevsky (November 11, 1821 – February 9, 1881)
    “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”

  55. Theodore Dreiser (August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945)
    “Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.”

  56. Alexandre Dumas (July 24, 1802 – December 5, 1870)
    “All human wisdom is summed up in two words: wait and hope.”

  57. Umberto Eco (January 5, 1932 – February 19, 2016)
    “Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry.”

  58. Dave Eggers (March 12, 1970 – )
    “Do not think for one minute that because you are who you are, you cannot be who you imagine yourself to be.”

  59. T.S. Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965)
    “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”

  60. Ralph Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994)
    “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”

  61. Bret Easton Ellis (March 7, 1964 – )
    “The better you look, the more you see.”

  62. Louise Erdrich (June 7, 1954 – )
    “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning.”

  63. Jeffrey Eugenides (March 8, 1960 – )
    “The crucial thing is to find a truth that I didn’t understand before.”

  64. William Faulkner (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962)
    “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

  65. F. Scott Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940)
    “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

  66. Ian Fleming (May 28, 1908 – August 12, 1964)
    “Never say ‘no’ to adventures. Always say ‘yes,’ otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.”

  67. Jonathan Safran Foer (February 21, 1977 – )
    “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

  68. E.M. Forster (January 1, 1879 – June 7, 1970)
    “Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.”

  69. Richard Ford (February 16, 1944 – )
    “In order to write novels for a living, you’ve got to be ready to let other, better things pass you by.”

  70. Frederick Forsyth (August 25, 1938 – )
    “For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.”

  71. Jonathan Franzen (August 17, 1959 – )
    “The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than ‘The Metamorphosis’.”

  72. Neil Gaiman (November 10, 1960 – )
    “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

  73. Gabriel García Márquez (March 6, 1927 – April 17, 2014)
    “It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.”

  74. Elizabeth Gilbert (July 18, 1969 – )
    “You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day.”

  75. William Gibson (March 17, 1948 – )
    “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

  76. Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997)
    “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.”

  77. William Golding (September 19, 1911 – June 19, 1993)
    “Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.”

  78. Günter Grass (October 16, 1927 – April 13, 2015)
    “Even bad books are books and therefore sacred.”

  79. John Grisham (February 8, 1955 – )
    “Don’t compromise yourself - you’re all you have.”

  80. Mark Haddon (September 26, 1962 – )
    “Sometimes we get sad about things and we don’t like to tell other people that we are sad about them. We like to keep it a secret. Or sometimes, we are sad but we really don’t know why we are sad, so we say we aren’t sad but we really are.”

  81. Dashiell Hammett (May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961)
    “Nobody thinks clearly, no matter what they pretend. Thinking’s a dizzy business, a matter of catching as many of those foggy glimpses as you can and fitting them together the best you can.”

  82. Thomas Hardy (June 2, 1840 – January 11, 1928)
    “Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.”

  83. Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864)
    “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

  84. Seamus Heaney (April 13, 1939 – August 30, 2013)
    “If you have the words, there’s always a chance that you’ll find the way.”

  85. Joseph Heller (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999)
    “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

  86. Ernest Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961)
    “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”

  87. Hermann Hesse (July 2, 1877 – August 9, 1962)
    “I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”

  88. Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995)
    “My imagination functions much better when I don’t have to speak to people.”

  89. Khaled Hosseini (March 4, 1965 – )
    “It’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.”

  90. Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967)
    “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”

  91. Victor Hugo (February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885)
    “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

  92. Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960)
    “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

  93. Aldous Huxley (July 26, 1894 – November 22, 1963)
    “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

  94. Kazuo Ishiguro (November 8, 1954 – )
    “Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily colored by the circumstances in which one remembers.”

  95. Henry James (April 15, 1843 – February 28, 1916)
    “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”

  96. P.D. James (August 3, 1920 – November 27, 2014)
    “What a child doesn’t receive he can seldom later give.”

  97. James Joyce (February 2, 1882 – January 13, 1941)
    “Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”

  98. Franz Kafka (July 3, 1883 – June 3, 1924)
    “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”

  99. Nikos Kazantzakis (February 18, 1883 – October 26, 1957)
    “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”

  100. Jack Kerouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969)
    “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved.”

  101. Stephen King (September 21, 1947 – )
    “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”

  102. Barbara Kingsolver (April 8, 1955 – )
    “The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.”

  103. Milan Kundera (April 1, 1929 – July 11, 2023)
    “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”

  104. Jhumpa Lahiri (July 11, 1967 – )
    “That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”

  105. Nella Larsen (April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964)
    “She couldn’t at the moment recall any race or land that hadn’t been assured by some of its people that it was the best of all races and countries.”

  106. D.H. Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930)
    “Be a good animal, true to your instincts.”

  107. Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016)
    “I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”

  108. Ursula K. Le Guin (October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018)
    “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”

  109. Stanisław Lem (September 12, 1921 – March 27, 2006)
    “We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don’t know what to do with other worlds.”

  110. Doris Lessing (October 22, 1919 – November 17, 2013)
    “Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”

  111. Jonathan Lethem (February 19, 1964 – )
    “I work to create systems that can accurately model human experience, and then I critique those systems in order to make them better.”

  112. C.S. Lewis (November 29, 1898 – November 22, 1963)
    “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”

  113. Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951)
    “It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.”

  114. Clarice Lispector (December 10, 1920 – December 9, 1977)
    “I write as if to save somebody’s life. Probably my own. Life is not what I thought it was going to be.”

  115. Jack London (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916)
    “Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”

  116. H.P. Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937)
    “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

  117. Malcolm Lowry (July 28, 1909 – June 26, 1957)
    “How, unless you drink as I do, could you hope to understand the beauty of an old Indian woman playing dominoes with a chicken?”

  118. Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967)
    “The heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of another’s fire.”

  119. Ian McEwan (June 21, 1948 – )
    “It’s the essence of a degenerating mind periodically, to lose all sense of continuous self.”

  120. Frank McCourt (August 19, 1930 – July 19, 2009)
    “Darkness can be a teacher.”

  121. Larry McMurtry (June 3, 1936 – March 25, 2021)
    “If you wait, all that happens is you get older.”

  122. Bernard Malamud (April 26, 1914 – March 18, 1986)
    “We have two lives… the life we learn with and the life we live with after that.”

  123. Thomas Mann (June 6, 1875 – August 12, 1955)
    “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

  124. George R.R. Martin (September 20, 1948 – )
    “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

  125. Cormac McCarthy (July 20, 1933 – June 13, 2023)
    “You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”

  126. Alexander McCall Smith (August 24, 1948 – )
    “You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years.”

  127. Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891)
    “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”

  128. China Miéville (September 6, 1972 – )
    “I like the constraint of working in worlds where there are consequences and rules.”

  129. Henry Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980)
    “The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

  130. A.A. Milne (January 18, 1882 – January 31, 1956)
    “Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”

  131. Yukio Mishima (January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970)
    “True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.”

  132. Margaret Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949)
    “Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.”

  133. David Mitchell (January 12, 1969 – )
    “Power is the ability to make someone do what they otherwise wouldn’t, or deter them from doing what they otherwise would.”

  134. Walter Mosley (January 12, 1952 – )
    “A man’s bookcase will tell you everything you’ll ever need to know about him.”

  135. Toni Morrison (February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019)
    “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

  136. Haruki Murakami (January 12, 1949 – )
    “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

  137. Vladimir Nabokov (April 22, 1899 – July 2, 1977)
    “The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.”

  138. V.S. Naipaul (August 17, 1932 – August 11, 2018)
    “The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”

  139. Anaïs Nin (February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977)
    “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

  140. Flannery O’Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964)
    “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”

  141. Joyce Carol Oates (June 16, 1938 – )
    “The writer’s first responsibility is to be authentic to their vision and to their language.”

  142. Edna O’Brien (December 15, 1930 – )
    “In a way, winter is the real spring, the time when the inner things happen, the resurge of nature.”

  143. George Orwell (June 25, 1903 – January 21, 1950)
    “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

  144. Chuck Palahniuk (February 21, 1962 – )
    “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”

  145. Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967)
    “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”

  146. Richard Powers (June 18, 1957 – )
    “The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”

  147. Terry Pratchett (April 28, 1948 – March 12, 2015)
    “The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”

  148. Marcel Proust (July 10, 1871 – November 18, 1922)
    “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

  149. Philip Pullman (October 19, 1946 – )
    “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”

  150. Thomas Pynchon (May 8, 1937 – )
    “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”

  151. Ayn Rand (February 2, 1905 – March 6, 1982)
    “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

  152. Louise Penny (July 1, 1958 – )
    “Life is change. If you aren’t growing and evolving, you’re standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.”

  153. Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849)
    “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

  154. Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963)
    “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.”

  155. Philip Roth (March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018)
    “The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.”

  156. Salman Rushdie (June 19, 1947 – )
    “Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.”

  157. Richard Russo (July 15, 1949 – )
    “That’s the problem with small towns: everybody knows everybody’s business.”

  158. J.K. Rowling (July 31, 1965 – )
    “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

  159. Arundhati Roy (November 24, 1961 – )
    “The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out.”

  160. Carlos Ruiz Zafón (September 25, 1964 – June 19, 2020)
    “Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.”

  161. J.D. Salinger (January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010)
    “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours.”

  162. José Saramago (November 16, 1922 – June 18, 2010)
    “Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.”

  163. Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980)
    “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”

  164. Dorothy L. Sayers (June 13, 1893 – December 17, 1957)
    “Facts are like cows. If you look them in the face long enough, they generally run away.”

  165. Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860)
    “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

  166. Walter Scott (August 15, 1771 – September 21, 1832)
    “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!”

  167. Maurice Sendak (June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012)
    “There must be more to life than having everything.”

  168. Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991)
    “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”

  169. William Shakespeare (April 26, 1564 – April 23, 1616)
    “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

  170. Mary Shelley (August 30, 1797 – February 1, 1851)
    “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

  171. Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 – July 8, 1822)
    “Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”

  172. Zadie Smith (October 25, 1975 – )
    “The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.”

  173. Alexander Solzhenitsyn (December 11, 1918 – August 3, 2008)
    “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart.”

  174. Rebecca Solnit (June 24, 1961 – )
    “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. Hope is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency.”

  175. Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004)
    “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.”

  176. Muriel Spark (February 1, 1918 – April 13, 2006)
    “It is a good thing to go to Paris for a few days if you have had a lot of trouble, and that is my advice to everyone except Parisians.”

  177. John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968)
    “I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen.”

  178. Wallace Stegner (February 18, 1909 – April 13, 1993)
    “Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.”

  179. Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946)
    “A rose is a rose is a rose.”

  180. Tom Stoppard (July 3, 1937 – )
    “Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”

  181. Bram Stoker (November 8, 1847 – April 20, 1912)
    “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!”

  182. William Styron (June 11, 1925 – November 1, 2006)
    “A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”

  183. Italo Svevo (December 19, 1861 – September 13, 1928)
    “Life is neither ugly nor beautiful, but it’s original.”

  184. Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 – October 19, 1745)
    “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”

  185. Wisława Szymborska (July 2, 1923 – February 1, 2012)
    “I’m drowning in papers. I don’t know where to put them anymore. If I were to suddenly go bald, I’d have enough to cover at least five heads.”

  186. Junichiro Tanizaki (July 24, 1886 – July 30, 1965)
    “The quality that we call beauty must always grow from the realities of life.”

  187. Donna Tartt (December 23, 1963 – )
    “Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”

  188. Amy Tan (February 19, 1952 – )
    “If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude.”

  189. Sara Teasdale (August 8, 1884 – January 29, 1933)
    “Life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things.”

  190. William Makepeace Thackeray (July 18, 1811 – December 24, 1863)
    “Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.”

  191. Dylan Thomas (October 27, 1914 – November 9, 1953)
    “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

  192. Hunter S. Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005)
    “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke.”

  193. J.R.R. Tolkien (January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973)
    “Not all those who wander are lost.”

  194. Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828 – November 20, 1910)
    “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

  195. Anthony Trollope (April 24, 1815 – December 6, 1882)
    “There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.”

  196. Ivan Turgenev (November 9, 1818 – September 3, 1883)
    “Time, as is well known, sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes crawls like a worm, but human beings are generally particularly happy when they don’t notice whether it’s passing quickly or slowly.”

  197. Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910)
    “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

  198. Anne Tyler (October 25, 1941 – )
    “I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you’re with them.”

  199. John Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009)
    “Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.”

  200. Mario Vargas Llosa (March 28, 1936 – )
    “Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your obsessions and memories.”

  201. Jules Verne (February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905)
    “Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”

  202. Gore Vidal (October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012)
    “Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”

  203. Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007)
    “Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.”

  204. Alice Walker (February 9, 1944 – )
    “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

  205. David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008)
    “The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”

  206. Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989)
    “The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can’t know. He can’t know whether knowledge will save him or kill him.”

  207. Evelyn Waugh (October 28, 1903 – April 10, 1966)
    “Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.”

  208. H.G. Wells (September 21, 1866 – August 13, 1946)
    “The path of least resistance is the path of the loser.”

  209. Edith Wharton (January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937)
    “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

  210. E.B. White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985)
    “Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.”

  211. Oscar Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900)
    “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

  212. Tennessee Williams (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983)
    “Time is the longest distance between two places.”

  213. Jeanette Winterson (August 27, 1959 – )
    “What you risk reveals what you value.”

  214. P.G. Wodehouse (October 15, 1881 – February 14, 1975)
    “I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”

  215. Tom Wolfe (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)
    “You never realize how much of your background is sewn into the lining of your clothes.”

  216. Gene Wolfe (May 7, 1931 – April 14, 2019)
    “We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us.”

  217. Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941)
    “Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”

  218. Richard Wright (September 4, 1908 – November 28, 1960)
    “Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.”

  219. Richard Yates (February 3, 1926 – November 7, 1992)
    “If you wanted to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always turned out to be a thing that had to be done alone.”

  220. Abraham B. Yehoshua (December 9, 1936 – June 14, 2022)
    “Identity is made of so many different elements, values, and traits collected from different sources.”

  221. William Butler Yeats (June 13, 1865 – January 28, 1939)
    “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

  222. Banana Yoshimoto (July 24, 1964 – )
    “Memory is like fiction; or else fiction is like memory. This really came home to me once I started writing fiction.”

  223. Émile Zola (April 2, 1840 – September 29, 1902)
    “If you ask me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.”

  224. Markus Zusak (June 23, 1975 – )
    “Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.”