As a writer I'm merely a journalist who has learned to…

I didn't go into journalism thinking it would solidify my identity. I did it because I needed to make a living, and I was…

— Alex Tizon

My master's degree was in journalism, but everything important I ever learned about being a journalist I learned on the job.

— Rebecca Mead

To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and…

— Andre Gide

It is difficult to call myself a writer, even when I stand at a podium to receive a prize, I feel uncomfortable calling myself…

— Murong Xuecun

“A writer is merely a reader that had the guts to be read, and, heard.”

— Mokokoma Mokhonoana

No good writer ever merely cheered us up. But there's an unblinking stare into the darkness of things we have to go elsewhere to…

— Howard Jacobson

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

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