I need a source for the following quote: "Writing is like sex; you
start out doing it for love, then for a few friends, and you wind up
doing it for money." My web searches have turned up three answers:
Moliere, Oscar Wilde, and anonynous. I had long attributed it to
Dorothy Parker. I want to use it in a book I'm working on, but I'm
reluctant to do so without a confirmed source. An acceptable answer
must therefore include a citation I can somehow check.

Thanks,
Bill H

You can add Virginia Woolfe to the list of writers to whom this quote
has been attributed.

Logic seems to dictate that there won't be any authoritative source
for this quotation. After all, if it appeared in someone's published
writing, why should there be any doubt at all about the source? If, on
the other hand, it was supposed to have been said by someone, then why
should anyone's attribution be any more authoritative than anyone
else's? Personally, I'd say that it sounds more like Dorothy Parker
than any of the other named, possible sources. Incidentally, as you
may know, putting "writing is like sex" into Google throws up many
more similarities between these two creative acts.

Have no idea how old the quote is, but ussually the attribution with
the most 'weight' is the oldest one. The first published report of the
quote with a source is generally accepted as the original, and later
entries that attribute the quote to other authors are due to improper
research. Ofcourse if one can find a handwritten copy of the
manuscript by the author of the quote that would be 'the oldest'
one...

Thanks for those comments. I agree with those who say it sounds most
like D. Parker. And I forgot about the V. Woolfe citation (which
sounds quite unlikely to me). As for the question of an authoritative
source, I don't agree that it's inherently unkowable. After all, every
time someone recites the Gettysburg Address s/he sez, "Four score and
seven years ago," but I still credit Lincoln as the author of that
statement. Alternatively, "All the world's a stage" may have been a
commonplace in Elizabethan England, but I'd still score that one for
Shakespeare.