Quotes About Literature

I was completely devoted to reading and books from the age of seven. It took until I was 18 to have the confidence to write poetry.

Good dialogue is very important.

Since its beginnings, American writing has been in dialogue with other literatures.

I love writing Scottish dialogue.

At its best, writing is a dialogue. It's one of the things I love about children's: the fact that this dialogue is really there from the get-go, from the start of writing.

I love writing dialogue - it's when I really lose myself in my work. I love reading it, too, when it's good and rings true.

I read 'The Rum Diary,' and I didn't really like it very much.

I was brought up on Dickens. I remember reading 'Bleak House' but, coming back to it, I didn't remember much about it apart from a few characters.

Sarah Phelps is such an incredibly detailed writer. She's famous for bringing literature to life, like Dickens and Agatha Christie.

I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare.

Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies.

The whole world knows Dickens, his London and his characters.

I'm not a Dickens guy. In grad school I had to take at least one course on the Victorians, so I took The Later Dickens, because that was what there was.

Dickens belongs to the English people.

I read a lot when I was at college, but really, only a few of Dickens's books work for me.

I hadn't read Dickens for a while and doing 'Bleak House' was great.

There are a lot of very good New York novels, but there's no single all-encompassing novel, the way you could look at any number of Dickens books and say we know London as a result of that.

I've always been in love with language. My favorite book is a dictionary. I have always loved words.

I used to just sit down and read the dictionary, and I read the Bible and Shakespeare from cover to cover.

I use the dictionary all the time when I'm reading or working on scripts.

When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before.

What I do not want to write is didactic political tracts.

One is always enthralled, I think, when a young writer you're just beginning to read and comprehend dies.

I like books on tape, and will listen to just about anything.