"'Someone should write a book about the dedicatees of the great poets."
—James Runcie, Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (2012)

"Write a novel in which a cryptozoophile kills himself at the end, unable to physically consummate his relationship to his objects of desire." —Stefan, of The Kelayah Objective

"Somebody should write a book someday about the silences in Scripture."
—Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark (2007)

"Somebody should write a book called Strangers in Our Own Land."
—Stuart Holmes Coleman, Fierce Heart: The Story of Makaha and the Soul of Hawaiian Surfing (2010)

"Apparently, eighty-one percent of Americans feel they should write a book."
—Shashi Tharoor, Bookless in Baghdad (2012)

"Write a novel in which every character dies on page one."
—William Keckler

Write a novel which is composed of only the shadows of people on grass.
—William Keckler

"I know whenever I mention 'you should write a book' there will be an inevitable 'who, me?' reaction. Yes, of course you."
—ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income

Write a novel purely about the nasopharyngeal colorings of desire.
—William Keckler

"I wish someone would write a good, comprehensive book of home dog medicine."
—John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

"Write a novel in which the characters are painfully aware they are in a shitty novel and try constantly to escape from the book. Follow the characters as they migrate from novel to novel, some characters pursuing others into different books. Have lovers be terribly depressed when they rediscover each other in a new book, only to learn they are young brother and sister and so can no longer consummate their love. Or worse, they discover themselves in a book in which they must fight to the death. Have villains end up being cast as heroes and heroines in different novels, and heroes and heroines end up as grungy minor characters to whom no reader would pay any serious attention. Have a character mistakenly enter a book that is 'all photographs' and be rendered invisible."
—William Keckler

Write a novel about an anteater who is terrified of ants.
—William Keckler

"Someone should write a book about what it feels like to fall in love at first sight."
—Swan Adamson, My Three Husbands (1995)

"Someone should write a book and fill every page with the credo, Don't drop the soap."
—Terra Little, Jump (2011)

"One of these days someone should write a book called What is this thing called philosophy?"
—Alan Chalmers, The Scientist's Atom and the Philosopher's Stone (2009)

"This should be the title of the autobiography of the human animal: The Dream Never Did Explain..."
—William Keckler

"Someone should write a book: 'The Locker-Going Habits of the Eighth-Grade North American Boy.'"
—Cathleen Daly, Flirt Club (2011)

Someone should write a book entitled:

My Emphasis: Notes from an Attentive Reader

[thank you, Jonathan Caws-Elwitt!]

An illustration from a 1916 issue of Scribner's magazine.  The caption reads: "And now you'll never, never write the great American novel!"

"I have records of 31 extraordinary events in 1883.  Someone should write a book upon the phenomena of this one year—that is, if books should be written."
—Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned (1919)