Anecdotes Quote by Dan Chaon

My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a…

— John Irving

The idea of writing, to me, was, from the beginning, was writing something which was a little different from the ordinary exchange of speech.…

— W. S. Merwin

It's hard to say when my interest in writing began, or how. My mother read to my sister and me every night, and we…

— Sara Zarr

I was always someone who wanted to write. I was a real shy, bookworm-ish kid, and I think my earliest stuff was fairly dark.

— Gillian Flynn

I began writing and became attached to writing at an early age. I began by writing poetry and experimenting with dialogues: modest plays, in…

— Hassan Blasim

What contributed to my writing early on is how my mom encouraged it. She kept the TV off because she wanted my siblings and…

— Amanda Gorman

I started writing while I was a little boy. Maybe it's because I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that…

— Naguib Mahfouz

Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and…

— Kate DiCamillo

I didn't start writing so that I could more deeply know myself. I was bored of myself, my life, my childhood, my hometown. I…

— Julianna Baggott

I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and reading even before that. My mom still has stories that I wrote when…

— Linda Sue Park

I've always wanted to write an early reader. When I wrote my first novel, my goal was to make it an early reader, but…

— Grace Lin

I never started writing because I wanted to write myself stuff. It was really more that I had these stories to tell, and I…

— Josh Lawson