Solitude and quiet are highly desirable, but the lack of them is no barrier to writing... The will to work builds all the seclusion that one needs.

- John Braine

Being a writer in a library is rather like being a eunuch in a harem.

- John Braine

There isn't, unfortunately, any way of discovering whether you can write a publishable novel except by writing it.

- John Braine

It isn't that inspiration doesn't exist, but it comes only with writing.

- John Braine

I've no desire to be ill-dressed; but I hate the feeling that I daren't be ill-dressed if I want to.

- John Braine

To be shockingly original with your first novel, you don’t have to discover a new technique: Simply write about people as they are and not as the pre…

- John Braine

Writing's not always a pleasure to me, but if I'm not writing every other pleasure loses its savour.

- John Braine