Reading And Writing Quotes

• A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Reading, Writing

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• Keep reading and writing, learn how to revise, and push through rejections. My second book, Monsoon Summer, was rejected over 20 times and finally came out 11 years after my first book! I'm glad I didn't give up. Neither should you.

  Mitali Perkins

  Summer, Giving Up, Book

  Source: www.yabookshelf.com

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• Reading and writing are the same thing; it's just one's the more active and the other's the more passive. They flow into each other.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Reading, Writing, Flow

  Source: www.believermag.com

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• If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

  Stephen King

  Writing, Caring, Tools

  Stephen King (2000). “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”, p.174, Simon and Schuster

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• If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

  Toni Morrison

  Inspirational, Happiness, Attitude

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• So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.

  Dr. Seuss

  Life, Beautiful, Funny Inspirational

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• Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

  Anne Lamott

  Writing, Effort, Needs

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.25, Anchor

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• Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

  Groucho Marx

  Funny, Friendship, Education

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• You must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.

  Confucius

  Reading, Ignorance, Self

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• The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

  Samuel Johnson

  Time, Powerful, Book

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 6 Apr. 1775)

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• A novelist has two lives-- a reading and writing life, and a lived life. he or she cannot be understood at all apart from this.

  Jane Smiley

  Reading, Writing, Two

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• Read, read read. Read everything.

  William Faulkner

  Writing, Famous Writers, Writers Reading

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• Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body and prayer is to the soul.

  Matthew Kelly

  Prayer, Book, Reading

  Matthew Kelly (2003). “Rediscovering Catholicism: Journeying Toward Our Spiritual North Star”, p.243, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing

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• How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Beautiful, Book

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.8, Penguin

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• When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Inspirational, Motivational, Money

  Desiderius Erasmus' letter to Jacob Batt, April 12, 1500.

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• We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.

  Anne Lamott

  Writing, Sheep, Needs

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.3, Anchor

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• Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

  Stephen King

  Life, Beautiful, Truth

  Stephen King (2011). “Danse Macabre”, p.430, Simon and Schuster

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• Characterization is an accident that flows out of action and dialogue.

  Jack Woodford

  Writing, Flow, Action

  Jack Woodford (2012). “Trial and Error”, p.177, askmar publishing

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• The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.

  Andre Gide

  Beautiful, Writing, Madness

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• Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Writing, Keys, Story Writers

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• Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

  George Orwell

  Struggle, Book, Writing

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.316, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

  Thomas Mann

  Writing, People, Difficult

  "Essays of Three Decades". Book by Thomas Mann, 1942.

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• Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none

  Jules Renard

  Success, Writing, People

  Jules Renard, Louise Bogan, Elizabeth Roget (2008). “The Journal of Jules Renard”, p.286, Tin House Books

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• It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.

  C. J. Cherryh

  Writing, Long, Garbage

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• A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Reading, Hero

  1905 Heretics, ch.15.

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