A writer is a person who produces nonfictional writing or literary art such as novels, short stories, poetry, plays, screenplays, or essays—especially someone who writes professionally.
Skilled writers are able to use language to express ideas and images. A writer's work may contribute significantly to the cultural content of a society.
The term writer is customarily used as a synonym of author, although the latter term has a somewhat broader meaning.
Famous quotes containing the word writer:
“The writer isn’t made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)
“As for work, without it, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante; there’s no point in waiting for so-called blissful moments, for inspiration; if it comes, so much the better—but you keep working anyway.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)
“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players, and Tennessee Williams has about 5, and Samuel Beckett one—and maybe a clone of that one. I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)