Quotes About Writing

It is much easier to do a film about something that the audience readily knows about - say, cricket. It is much more difficult to write a film based on golf.

Literature has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I can't think back before a time that I didn't love writing and reading. When I was really young, my mother would read poems to me. I loved Edgar Allan Poe - I am sure I didn't understand it, but I loved it.

If you read the first page of one of my novels, I can guarantee that you will read the last one. This isn't just social commentary. This is also about writing good page-turners. I want people to keep reading.

At readings, audience members sometimes ask if I keep writing past the two hours if I'm on a roll, but I don't. I figure that if I'm on a roll, it's partially because I know I'm about to stop.

You write with ease to show your breeding, but easy writing's curst hard reading.

I prefer writing in the mornings, so to that extent I have a routine. I do reading and other things in the afternoon.

The only time I felt I was different was when one of my friends said, 'I hate reading' and I stared at her like, 'What kind of an alien creature are you?!' Because it was so incomprehensible to me that someone could dislike reading! That really started my desire to help other children love reading and writing.

For a long time, I'd wanted to write a book that I would be proud and happy and psychologically and morally comfortable about my parents' reading.

Reading is No. 1 - I have to read, or I can't write.

If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.

When I start to write, words have become physical presence. It was to see if I could bring that private world to life that found its first expression through reading. I really dislike the romantic notion of the artist.

I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn't until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels; I liked them.

Acting is an incredibly gratifying, creative experience when you're doing it. But in the off-season, you want to scratch that itch, and writing has become that to me. It's a really pure form of creativity. It's good for my mental health in the same way reading books is good for me. It makes the day brighter.

One of the maddening ironies of writing books is that it leaves so little time for reading others'. My bedside is piled with books, but it's duty reading: books for book research, books for review. The ones I pine for are off on a shelf downstairs.

I would be honored if someone reads my books and it inspires them to write their own work.

Margot Livesey, my dear friend, reads all the drafts of what I write, and I read hers. We have an intense working relationship. I've been really lucky to know her. She's a great reader and teacher as well as an astonishingly good writer.

Oh, I think every author is inspired by all of the books that she reads.

The most annoying and full-of-crap thing a writer says is, 'I write only for myself, I don't care if anyone reads it.' A writer without a reader doesn't exist.

When the whole world reads your books, is there any other happiness for a writer? I am happy that my books are read in 57 languages. But I am focused on Istanbul not because of Istanbul but because of humanity. Everyone is the same in the end.

Marry someone who flatters you. Because I've written 80 books since 'War Horse' but when my wife reads one, all she says is, 'It's quite good, but it's not as good as 'War Horse,' is it?'

If the book is a mystery to its author as she's writing, inevitably it's going to be a mystery to the reader as he or she reads it.

I do a lot of revising on paper. Sometimes I think I should just write longhand - what I type reads very different once I print it out.

I have one main reader, Miriam Gomez, my wife. She reads everything I write - I have not finished writing something and she is already reading it.

I remember seeing stories on Wattpad with five million reads and thinking, 'That must be incredible.'