...Quotes on Reading, Writing @ Literature...

bianglala

Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they can’t forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released.

NATALIE GOLDBERG

bianglala

Writing practice brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us feel the texture of them and not be afraid of them. Writing is still the wildest thing I know.

NATALIE GOLDBERG

seribulan

“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” — Jodi Picoult

bianglala

Writing involves a lot of fear, and discipline is a way to get over your fear, because you just do it.

KATE CHRISTENSEN

bianglala

I learned to dream through reading, learned to create dreams through writing, and learned to develop dreamers through teaching. I shall always be a dreamer. Come dream with me.

SHARON DRAPER

bianglala

Read. Read widely. Read everything. YA, teen, adult, fiction, non-fiction, cereal boxes, toothpaste tubes. You can read books on the rules of writing, but it’s better to see what the rules of writing look like in practice. Also, read critically. If you love a book, break it down: why do you love it? If you hate a book, break it down: why do you hate it?

MAGGIE STIEFVATER

bianglala

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

HELEN DUNMORE

bianglala

In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.

ANDRE MAUROIS

bianglala

A great writer has a high respect for values. His essential function is to raise life to the dignity of thought, and this he does by giving it a shape.

ANDRE MAUROIS

bianglala

Good writing, like gold, combines lustrous lucidity with high density. What this means is good writing is packed with hints.

ERIC HOFFER

bianglala

Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.

BORIS PASTERNAK

bianglala

Good writing is always a breaking of the soil, clearing away prejudices, pulling up of sour weeds of crooked thinking, stripping the turf so as to get at what is fertile beneath.

HENRY SEIDEL CANBY

bianglala

Reading for experience is the only reading that justifies excitement. Reading for facts is necessary bu the less said about it in public the better. Reading for distraction is like taking medicine. We do it, but it is nothing to be proud of. But reading for experience is transforming.

HENRY SEIDEL CANBY

bianglala

Writer’s block? I’ve heard of this. This is when a writer cannot write, yes? Then that person isn’t a writer anymore. I’m sorry, but the job is getting up in the fucking morning and writing for a living.

WARREN ELLIS

bianglala

Novel-writing is a highly skilled and laborious trade. One does not just sit behind a screen jotting down other people’s conversation. One has for one’s raw material every single thing one has ever seen or heard or felt, and one has to go over that vast, smouldering rubbish-heap of experience, half stifled by fumes and dust, scraping and delving until one finds a few discarded valuables. Then one has to assemble these tarnished and dented fragments, polish them, set them in order, and try to make a coherent and significant arrangement of them.

EVELYN WAUGH

bianglala

The thing about writing is that it’s a solitary activity. It’s you and your computer and a bunch of people who don’t exist. And when you spend a lot of your day doing that, it’s good to get out and talk with other people who are in your field. I like conventions. I like SF parties. I like teaching workshops. I like the contact with people.

NANCY KRESS

bianglala

Writing anything is better than not writing something perfect.

GARTH NIX

seribulan

“Done is better than perfect.” — Sheryl Sandberg

bianglala

Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.

VERA NAZARIAN

bianglala

Book readers are special people, and they will always turn to books as the ultimate pleasure. Those who do not read are the unfortunate ones. There’s nothing wrong with them; but they are missing out on one of life’s compensations and rewards. A great book is a friend that never lets you down. You can return to it again and again and the joy first derived from it will still be there.

RUSKIN BOND