It's the stuff that happens right in front of your face when there's no routine and everything is unexpected. That's what I… — Harvey Pekar Copy Share Image
Of all the excellent copyedits I've received over the years, Marie-Lynn Hammond's was by far the best. Her work on Half Blood… — Esi Edugyan Copy Share Image
When the stories come easily and the writing process doesn't feel laboring, that's usually a good sign for me. — David E. Kelley Copy Share Image
“What's this "rough life of a novelist" bullshit? You sound like an idiot. You're a writer. At least give yourself better lines.” — Maki Murakami Copy Share Image
A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there in a book, you may have… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
Writing has made me rich-not in money but in a couple hundred characters out there, whose pursuits and anguish and triumphs I've… — Wright Morris Copy Share Image
I'll tell you what I was most surprised to discover about my writing process, and that is that I never know what… — Sharon Cameron Copy Share Image
“But preserve your mistrust of the page, for a book is a fortress, a place of weeping, the key to a desert,… — Sofia Samatar Copy Share Image
...the tale that's told for no other reason but companionship, which is another (and my favorite) definition of literature, the tale that's… — Jack Kerouac Copy Share Image
I read ' Treasure Island' for the first time at university. And I started to notice then how unresolved some things were.… — Andrew Motion Copy Share Image
Public libraries are our great teachers and storytellers, and are a vital adjunct to our schools. In this day of standardized and… — Julie Andrews Copy Share Image
I used to think I'd like to be a fireman - in fact, I still would - and the only drawback I… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
“There, stacked high on his desk, was a tower of paper. Thick slabs of manuscript. Slush. Unsolicited, unagented, unloved. This was where… — Will Ferguson Copy Share Image
All literature is written by the old to teach the young how to express themselves so that they in turn may write… — Laura Riding Copy Share Image
By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected… — Roald Dahl Copy Share Image
That powers my desire to write: the sense of how quickly everything on the surface of life can be cut away and… — Nicole Krauss Copy Share Image
If you're trying to be a successful writer, and you go into a second-hand bookshop, it's the graveyard of people whose books… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Literature is no one’s private ground, literature is common ground; let us trespass freely and fearlessly and find our own way for… — Virginia Woolf Copy Share Image
“Reading" had always been my lifeline-- an escape to that imaginary world where hurts were fictional and endings happy...” — Phyllis Whitney Copy Share Image
Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars… — William Penn Copy Share Image
There is nothing wrong with a writer who has a distinct style in book after book, but I am not interested in… — Jay Neugeboren Copy Share Image
The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the… — Willa Cather Copy Share Image
I've kept journals at many times in my life starting from when I was about 13 or 14. But it's boring and… — Erica Jong Copy Share Image
“It's because of the way you are. It's why you're happy reading novels. You're only comfortable with a piece of the world… — Lan Samantha Chang Copy Share Image
I tried writing out a plot with the second or third novel I wrote, and it was so boring, so desperately boring. — Philip Pullman Copy Share Image
I read very widely, both non-fiction and fiction, so I don't think there's a single writer who influences me. — Peter Benchley Copy Share Image
I'm from a family of educators. I grew up with books in my house and in my hands and my parents in… — Vic Mensa Copy Share Image
Reading is another thing that has made me more human by exposing me to worlds I might never have entered and people… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
“The reason authors almost always put a dedication on a book is, because their selfishness even horrifies themselves in the end.” — Stephen King Copy Share Image
“Reading is a way of disciplining our minds, and it is also one of the most efficient means of mental escape.” — Andrew Piper Copy Share Image
A writer lives, at best, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the… — William Sansom Copy Share Image
“To stop us reading forbidden books they will have to burn every manuscript. But to stop us thinking forbidden thoughts they will… — Philippa Gregory Copy Share Image
“See, that's the beauty of books. We get to take what we want out of them and it can be different for… — Kristen Ashley Copy Share Image
I haven't always been a writer and I suppose I tiptoed around the idea of writing full time, because it's so isolating. — Marisha Pessl Copy Share Image
“Why one goes on writing when one sees what writing can be - and what one's own writing is not. Aldous Huxley” — Nicholas Murray Copy Share Image
Each book starts from ashes really. I don't feel that I have this to say or that to say or this story… — Philip Roth Copy Share Image
I'm not the fastest reader or writer but occasionally I'll write things down just so I don't forget them. — Thighpaulsandra Copy Share Image
“Jessica DuLong’s elegantly written "My River Chronicles" brings the past of the Hudson River into the vivid present, and carries forward the… — Gay Talese Copy Share Image
Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a… — Nora Ephron Copy Share Image
There are two kinds of characters in all fiction, the born and the synthetic. If the writer has to ask himself questions… — Rex Stout Copy Share Image
