Admiring Quote by Mary MacLane

I like to be aware of a book as a piece of writing, and aware of its structure as a product of mind, and…

— Annie Dillard

I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that I would like to write something like that someday.

— Naguib Mahfouz

Writers are naturally obsessed with books, the tangible artifacts of their labor. Even beyond the text, I love the physicality of books, the possibilities…

— Ken Liu

Writing is like a bird-watcher watching for birds: the stories are there: you just have to train yourself to look for them.

— Barbara Mertz

“...for some of us, books are as important as anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat,…

— Anne Lamont

“Writing is emblematic art form, which means that the book will never be any greater than the writer’s ability to perceive, classify, and describe…

— Kilroy J. Oldster

Today, writing seems to me like an incredible luxury, almost a perversity, something which hardly exists in the world anymore, where you get to…

— Zadie Smith

Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces.

— Allegra Goodman

I digress a lot - it's how I experience the world. I would like to write in a way that will convey that to…

— Claire Messud

I could always write in a wide variety. My moods change same as reader's moods change. I really do love writing the historicals, however,…

— Joe R. Lansdale

There are significant moments in everyone's day that can make literature. That's what you ought to write about.

— Raymond Carver

If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic.

— Toni Morrison