I learned to write because I am one of those people who…

I learned that you can't write a book in the margins of your life. I'd forgotten how much uninterrupted time it takes to write…

— Melissa Harris-Perry

I actually think I learned to write concisely working for an encyclopedia company in Chicago.

— Robert Christgau

Back in my 20s, when I wrote 'A Place of Greater Safety,' the French Revolution novel, I thought, 'I'll always have to write historical…

— Hilary Mantel

If I have learned how to write fiction it's by working with great writers and getting them to explain their craft to me so…

— Elliott Colla

I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don't think I ever gave it up, though there were…

— Alice Munro

I learned to write by writing.

— Neil Gaiman

I really learned how to write from Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, and de Maupassant.

— Louis L'Amour

I learned to write by listening to people talk. I still feel that the best of my writing comes from having heard rather than…

— Gayl Jones

“When I started to learn how to read, I discovered the same kind of power. I could create an environment that I didn't have,…

— Donald Richie

With Bernstein, because we wound up always working music first, it was where I really feel I learned how to write lyrics as a…

— Stephen Schwartz

I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.

— Barbara Kingsolver

I got put on jury duty, which is where I learned how to write.

— David O. Russell

“I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an' stuff like that, too; not just word writin'. My ol' man'll be sore when he…

— John Steinbeck

I learned to write by writing. I tended to do anything as long as it felt like an adventure, and to stop when it…

— Neil Gaiman

Because I worked as a newspaper reporter for about 14 years before attempting my first novel, I learned to write under almost any circumstances-…

— Geraldine Brooks