I don't know if a novelist ever fully detaches him- or herself from what they wrote and the way they wrote it.… — Scott Turow Copy Share Image
My books are not about different components that fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, it's about creating the space around… — Richard Grossman Copy Share Image
“Reading. I can get lost in a world and spend days there. Besides, reading a book gives me a goal. It's that… — C.M. Stunich Copy Share Image
I wish that the adults who are 'in power' cared more about what their children read. Books are incredibly powerful when we… — Gabrielle Zevin Copy Share Image
I think about fanaticism - oblivion awaits, especially for minor writers, so you have to be a fanatic; you have to be… — Cynthia Ozick Copy Share Image
Reading activates and exercises the mind. Reading forces the mind to discriminate. From the beginning, readers have to recognize letters printed on… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
I'll read pretty much anywhere and anytime, but for a while now, I've really enjoyed reading on flights, especially the longer hauls,… — Chang-Rae Lee Copy Share Image
Literature remains an indispensable human activity, in which the reader and the writer are engaged of their own volition. Hence, literature has… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance, it becomes literature. That intensity may be a… — Raymond Chandler Copy Share Image
Finally, if you want to write, you have to just shut up, pick up a pen, and do it. I'm sorry there… — Natalie Goldberg Copy Share Image
I don't believe that fiction is dead. I know there are some people who believe that it's an outdated art form, and… — Lauren Groff Copy Share Image
“What the times demand, and in an unprecedented fashion, is that one be—not seem—outrageous, independent, anarchical. That one be thoroughly disciplined—as a… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
Fiction's essential activity is to imagine how others feel, what a Saturday afternoon in an Italian town in the 2nd Century looked… — Guy Davenport Copy Share Image
You are saying, are you not, I said to Manuelito, that stories have more room in them than ideas? [...] He laughed.… — Alice Walker Copy Share Image
“Taylor had been a book lover her entire life and, even at twenty-six, loved nothing more than curling up and getting lost… — Jane Porter Copy Share Image
People have quite a simple idea about 'Anna Karenina.' They feel that the novel is entirely about a young married woman who… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
To write as if your life depended on it; to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public the words you… — Adrienne Rich Copy Share Image
“For a long time, I felt like I was destined to inherit a certain kind of life and so I wouldn’t let… — Kenny Porpora Copy Share Image
“I eat, breath and sleep and that makes me like everyone else. When I write, I become something much greater than flesh… — CK Webb Copy Share Image
That is one thing I am sure of amid my many uncertainties regarding the literary vocation: deep inside, a writer feels that… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
I've been slightly obsessed with paper and notebooks. Among my most precious possessions is a small light-blue, breviary-sized volume - four-and-a-half inches… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Most writers spend their lives standing a little apart from the crowd, watching and listening and hoping to catch that tiny hint… — Ayelet Waldman Copy Share Image
“By educating me at home, my parents were able to give me individualized attention without the usual distractions that kids in regular… — Colin Nissan Copy Share Image
You're not getting the joy out of literature that it gave you. This is the danger of what we do. Look at… — T.C. Boyle Copy Share Image
You know how some people are upwardly mobile? I'm sort of downwardly mobile in the publishing world, because of my sales figures… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
“Mom taught me not to look away from the worst but to believe that we can all do better. She never wavered… — Will Schwalbe Copy Share Image
“A writer must be hard to live with: when not working he is miserable, and when he is working he is obsessed.… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“What I find difficult, when I read, is to encounter other people’s achievements passed off as one’s own. I find it difficult… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
At thirty-five, having spent over twenty years running varied businesses for my family, I decided to sit down and write my first… — Ashwin Sanghi Copy Share Image
A modern librarian, who has faith in the law that 'BOOKS ARE FOR USE,' is happy only when his readers make his… — S. R. Ranganathan Copy Share Image
Elena Ferrante is the author of several novels. There is nothing mysterious about her, given how she manifests herself - perhaps even… — Elena Ferrante Copy Share Image
“ Just So You Know You fall in love with every book you touch. You never break the spine or tear the… — Sarah Addison Allen Copy Share Image
“Because you can always count on a book to stay the same . Everything changes when you least expect it, she replies,… — Jodi Picoult Copy Share Image
We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans — because we can. We have… — Maya Angelou Copy Share Image
Browsing the first editions at my local independent bookstore, I came across 'Pastoralia,' a collection of stories by George Saunders. I'd read… — Trenton Lee Stewart Copy Share Image
I would say what was always on her[Harper Lee] mind was the stories she had to tell, and the story was pretty… — Wayne Flynt Copy Share Image
We need to actually teach kids that books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat every bit on your plate. It's… — Jackie French Copy Share Image
The only way I've been able to stay informed without letting fury rule my life is to channel my rage into something… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“You want to get your book to press. You rush it through. Revision number twenty—done. Do you really need twenty more? Yes.… — Chila Woychik Copy Share Image