“I have to admit that most of the time I read in the same way that I smoke and chew gum and… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Other people’s words are so important. And then without warning they stop being important, along with all those words of yours that… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh,… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Some professional writers write everyday no matter what and perhaps that's the way it should be done, but it's not the way… — Marianne Williamson Copy Share Image
“Reading the book now means that one can, if one wants, play Fantasy Literature--match writers off against each other and see who… — Nick Hornby Copy Share Image
“Writing: shitty first drafts. Butt in chair. Just do it. You own everything that happened to you. You are going to feel… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“Lived in Chicago, survived in New York, brooded in Detroit, floundered in lots of places, arrived here late, after living in libraries… — Ray Bradbury Copy Share Image
As part of my research for An Anthology of Authors' Atrocity Stories About Publishers, I conducted a study (employing my usual controls)… — Calvin Trillin Copy Share Image
Now, as a writer, the whole world is your nail polish display, and what's more, you can help yourself. A thrilling, colourful… — Lynn Coady Copy Share Image
“He is a very senior member of faculty; has an added degree in Computer Science; a supposed scholar; addicted to Google and… — David N. Ofili Copy Share Image
I don't go to an office, so I write at home. I like to write in the morning, if possible; that's when… — Malcolm Gladwell Copy Share Image
“I think there have been a lot of writers who’ve been experimenting lately with really sprawling novels that will deal with a… — Tom Perrotta Copy Share Image
At different times and in different places I have come to expect certain books to look a certain way, and, as in… — Alberto Manguel Copy Share Image
Two or three things I know, two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that to go… — Dorothy Allison Copy Share Image
Teenagers travel in droves, packs, swarms. ... To the librarian, they're a gaggle of geese. To the cook, they're a scourge of… — Bernice Fitz-Gibbon Copy Share Image
“I tell my students that the odds of their getting published and of it bringing them financial security, peace of mind, and… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
“I believe that the phrase ‘obligatory reading’ is a contradiction in terms; reading should not be obligatory. Should we ever speak of… — Jorge Luis Borges Copy Share Image
“For all her faults, it was actually my mom who instilled in me a love of reading, and books, for which I… — Paula Gruben Copy Share Image
“In other words, in an age of great shifts in education, very little has shifted when it comes to the teaching of… — Kelly Gallagher Copy Share Image
Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a… — Roger Zelazny Copy Share Image
“If you’ve ever wondered what we’re missing by sitting at computers in cubicles all day, follow Jessica DuLong when she loses her… — Trevor Corson Copy Share Image
“Literature is, to my mind, the great teaching power of the world, the ultimate creator of all values, and it is this,… — William Butler Yeats Copy Share Image
I can tell you that when Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, our writer, when she would work on some of these grander novels like,… — James Ivory Copy Share Image
The world doesn’t fully make sense until the writer has secured his version of it on the page. And the act of… — Betsy Lerner Copy Share Image
Autobiographical writings, essays, interviews, various other things... All the non-fiction prose I wanted to keep, that was the idea behind this collected… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I started writing because there's an absence of things I was familiar with or that I dreamed about. One of my senses… — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
“The cover is alluring. The beginning may be enthralling. But there's no culmination and no happy ending. So I sagely advise you… — S. Ann Cole Copy Share Image
There are two different ways of writing a novel. The first I call the traditional father way, when the novelist slightly situates… — Elif Safak Copy Share Image
I used to write stories a lot because you had to fill your hours some other way than watching television. So my… — Robert Osborne Copy Share Image
Like me, he has a searing belief that books are sacred. They might not be to other people, but when you have… — Candace Bushnell Copy Share Image
“In a great library, you get into society in the widest sense. . . . From that great crowd you can choose… — Somerset Maughn Copy Share Image
I will now claim - until dispossesed - that I was the first person in the world to apply the typewriter to… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
At its heartmeat core, writing is about exploring the questions of your heart on the assumption that what intrigues you, what inflames… — J. Michael Straczynski Copy Share Image
Harper Lee and Truman Capote became friends as next-door neighbors in the late 1920s, when they were about kindergarten age. From the… — Charles J. Shields Copy Share Image
I used to be a pre-industrial writer: thousands of words in a spurt and then a few days off. But as I… — Scott Westerfeld Copy Share Image
To say that she had a book is to say that her solitude did not press upon her; for her love of… — Henry James Copy Share Image
“One of the vital things for a writer who’s writing a book, which is a lengthy project and is going to take… — Roald Dahl Copy Share Image
“Martin had a period of relishing the Boston thug-writer George V. Higgins, author of The Friends of Eddie Coyle . Higgins’s characters… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“To leave a novel unfinished, is to leave the characters stranded. They become helpless abiding in their own fear, pain, conflict, or… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
Writing, to me, is like kayaking a river. You are paddling down, and you come to a walled-off canyon, and you make… — Peter Heller Copy Share Image
![“I believe that the phrase ‘obligatory reading’ is a contradiction in terms; reading should not be obligatory. Should we ever speak of 'obligatory pleasure'? Pleasure is not obligatory, pleasure is something we seek. 'Obligatory happiness'! [...] If a book bores you, leave it; don’t read it because…” quote by Jorge Luis Borges](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/5f6/jorge-luis-borges-275_books_i-believe-that-the-phrase-obligatory-rea_2334935.jpg)
