Books Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

When I am writing a novel I try not to read great prose stylists into which I will fall.

— Frederick Busch

I don't really think of myself so much as a writer as a stylist, someone who came into writing from the back door and…

— Lindsey Buckingham

Most writers have been influenced by Faulkner.

— Louise Erdrich

I think Peter Dickinson is hands down the best stylist as a writer and the most interesting storyteller in my genre.

— Sara Paretsky

“Writers do not write what they want, they write what they can. When I was 21 I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately…

— Zadie Smith

I've found that writers who don't read really can't write.

— Sylvia Day

I stopped reading William Faulkner because it's hard work. I want to read a good writer, but I also want to read something where…

— John Grisham

I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.

— Samuel Butler

I don't read other writers because I'm writing all the time. It's too disturbing to read a writer with a good style when you're…

— Norman Mailer

I like the beauty of Faulkner's poetry. But I don't like his themes, not at all.

— Manuel Puig

Faulkner was the first novelist I read with pen and paper in hand because his technique stunned me.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

Each time I undertake to reread Virginia Woolf, I am somewhat baffled by the signature breathlessness and relentlessly "poetic" tone, the shimmering impressionism, so…

— Joyce Carol Oates