Francine Prose Quotes

Quotes about:

• Like most-maybe all- writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books.

  Francine Prose

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Francine Prose (2012). “Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them”, p.6, Union Books

  47 Copy quote

• You aim for what you want and if you don't get it, you don't get it, but if you don't aim, you don't get anything.

  Francine Prose

  Want, Self Knowledge, Aim

  7 Copy quote

• All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.

  Francine Prose

  Writing, Skills, Creative

  Francine Prose (2009). “Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them”, p.16, Harper Collins

  16 Copy quote

• Too often students are being taught to read as if literature were some kind of ethics class or civics class—or worse, some kind of self-help manual. In fact, the important thing is the way the writer uses the language.

  Francine Prose

  Self, Class, Important

  12 Copy quote

• People see everything through the lens of their obsessions.

  Francine Prose

  People, Lenses, Obsession

  Francine Prose (2012). “Goldengrove”, p.126, Atlantic Books Ltd

  5 Copy quote

• If we want to write, it makes sense to read—and to read like a writer. If we wanted to grow roses, we would want to visit rose gardens and try to see them the way that a rose gardener would.

  Francine Prose

  Writing, Garden, Rose

  5 Copy quote

• I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able I am to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter.

  Francine Prose

  Book, Reading, Might

  Francine Prose (2009). “Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them”, p.9, Harper Collins

  8 Copy quote

• Every page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and small deliberations. All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another. And what grabs and keeps our interest has everything to do with those choices.

  Francine Prose

  Writing, Skills, Choices

  Francine Prose (2009). “Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them”, p.16, Harper Collins

  9 Copy quote

• There are many occasions in literature in which telling is far more effective than showing.

  Francine Prose

  Literature, Occasions

  Francine Prose (2009). “Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them”, p.25, Harper Collins

  7 Copy quote

• We never believe we're beautiful, no matter how many times we hear it. We never believe it until someone says it in the right way.

  Francine Prose

  Beautiful, Believe, Matter

  Francine Prose (2013). “The Glorious Ones: A Novel”, p.143, Open Road Media

  9 Copy quote

• If things are going well I can easily spend twelve hours a day writing, but not writing writing, just thinking and revising and taking a comma out and putting it back in.

  Francine Prose

  Writing, Thinking, Twelve

  4 Copy quote

• I can no more reread my own books than I can watch old home movies or look at snapshots of myself as a child. I wind up sitting on the floor, paralyzed by grief and nostalgia.

  Francine Prose

  Children, Grief, Book

  7 Copy quote

• To be truthful, some writers stop you dead in your tracks by making you see your own work in the most unflattering light. Each of us will meet a different harbinger of personal failure, some innocent genius chosen by us for reasons having to do with what we see as our own inadequacies. The only remedy to this I have found is to read a writer whose work is entirely different from another, though not necessarily more like your own—a difference that will remind you of how many rooms there are in the house of art.

  Francine Prose

  Art, Light, Differences

  7 Copy quote

• When we humans speak, we are not merely communicating information but attempting to make an impression and achieve a goal.

  Francine Prose

  Goal, Information, Speak

  9 Copy quote

• With this recitation of paraphernalia and detritus, O'Brien manages to encapsulate the experience of an army and of a particular war, of a mined and booby-trapped landscape, of cold nights and hot days, of soaking monsoons and rice paddies, and of the possibility of being shot, like Ted Lavender, suddenly and out of nowhere: not only in the middle of a sentence but in the midst of a subordinate clause.

  Francine Prose

  War, Army, Night

  "Reading Like a Writer". Book by Francine Prose, 2006.

  13 Copy quote

• With so much reading ahead of you, the temptation might be to speed up. But in fact it’s essential to slow down and read every word. Because one important thing that can be learned by reading slowly is the seemingly obvious but oddly underappreciated fact that language is the medium we use in much the same way a composer uses notes, the way a painter uses paint. I realize it may seem obvious, but it’s surprising how easily we lose sight of the fact that words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted.

  Francine Prose

  Reading, Sight, Temptation

  6 Copy quote

• Reading was like eating alone, with that same element of bingeing.

  Francine Prose

  Reading, Elements, Eating Alone

  Francine Prose (2012). “Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them”, p.9, Union Books

  13 Copy quote

• A lot of girls who turn into something remarkable start off as irrepressible, confident and a handful.

  Francine Prose

  Girl, Remarkable, Irrepressible

  9 Copy quote

• 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' convinced me to drop out of Harvard graduate school. The novel reminded me of everything my Ph.D. program was trying to make me forget. Thank you, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

  Francine Prose

  Thank You, School, Years

  8 Copy quote

• I know a lot of Eastern Europeans, and because of what they have been through and what they have seen, they have an attitude where they are not easily fooled.

  Francine Prose

  Attitude, Fooled, Eastern

  7 Copy quote

• What I love is how pissed off Jane Eyre is. She's in a rage for the whole novel and the payoff is she gets to marry this blind guy who's toasted his wife in the attic." -Angela Argo "Blue Angel

  Francine Prose

  Angel, Love Is, Blue

  9 Copy quote

• I think poets are much more dramatic, more theatrical than fiction writers.

  Francine Prose

  Thinking, Fiction, Dramatic

  4 Copy quote

• I went through college in the 1960s without having any idea that I was going to have to make a living. When I graduated in 1968 it was quite a shock to find out that there was a world out there and that it wasnt going to support me.

  Francine Prose

  College, Ideas, Support

  4 Copy quote

• I remember, when I was a little kid, I was good at sports, and I could jump off the high board. And then puberty hit, and suddenly I was looking to boys for direction. I remember that as a great loss.

  Francine Prose

  Sports, Kids, Loss

  10 Copy quote

• Words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted.

  Francine Prose

  Raw Materials, Literature, Materials

  Francine Prose (2009). “Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them”, p.16, Harper Collins

  4 Copy quote

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