“Every writer I know, when asked how to become a writer, responds with one word:Read.” — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
Many readers know my work first through 'Housekeeping,' simply because it was my only novel for a pretty long time. — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I have found that the characters in my novels stay with me after a book has ended. I know them in some… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
My first novel, 'Housekeeping,' was accepted by the first agent who read it, and bought by the first editor who read it.… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“Open a book and a voice speaks. A world, more or less alien or welcoming, emerges to enrich a reader’s store of… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I like a book to be full of the memory of what it is, a voice in an endless conversation, and yet… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
Never, ever condescend to the reader. Assume you are writing for someone better and smarter than you are. This will protect you… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I was read to as a small child, I read on my own as soon as I could, and I recall being… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I am delighted if people find that kind of sustenance in novels, but perhaps it's because they don't read the Scripture that… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I like to read in my own house, in any of the rooms I always mean to paint or otherwise improve and… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
There are several sources for my appreciation of pastors and the way they are described in this book. One of them is… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I read things like theology, and I read about science, 'Scientific American' and publications like that, because they stimulate again and again… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
When I went to college, I majored in American literature, which was unusual then. But it meant that I was broadly exposed… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
Oddly enough, my favorite genre is not fiction. I'm attracted by primary sources that are relevant to historical questions of interest to… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I tend to think of the reading of any book as preparation for the next reading of it. There are always intervening… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“I think that to be a good writer, you have to put yourself on the line, you have to think deeply about… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“But I’ve developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“I love the writers of my thousand books. It pleases me to think how astonished old Homer, whoever he was, would be… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“I would say, for the moment, that community, at least community larger than the immediate family, consists very largely of imaginative love… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I am interested in Scripture and theology. This is an interest that I can assume I would share with a pastor, so… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“You can love a bad book for its haplessness or pomposity or gall, if you have that starveling appetite for things human… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“But I’ve developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
For our purposes as human beings, the mind is the center of everything. — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“I think sometimes there might be an advantage in making people aware how worn and stale these old transgressions are. It might take some… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
My Calvinism persuades me that we are open to God, in the sense that we are not delimited, not organisms with fixed attributes in… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
I listen to Bach a great deal. In general I like to listen to hymns and liturgical music. — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“Every writer I know, when asked how to become a writer, responds with one word:Read.” — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“Faith for her was habit and family loyalty, a reverence for the Bible which was also literary, admiration for her mother and father. And… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.’ There are pleasures to be found where you… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
I sometimes am discouraged by what seems to be a sort of conventional disparagement of humankind. I think often people feel that they are… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
Now that I look back, it seems to me that in all that deep darkness a miracle was preparing. So I am right to… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“My grandfather once told her if you couldn't read with cold feet, there wouldn't be a literate soul in the state of Maine.” — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“Cranky old Leviticus gave us—gave Christ—not only “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” but also the rather forgotten “Thou shalt love the stranger… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
