Ann Patchett, on writing:

I craft everything in the beginning.

I know where the characters are going before I start writing the book.

- Ann Patchett. 

Ernest Hemingway, on writing:

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

- Ernest Hemingway.

Jhumpa Lahiri, on writing:

 

When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message.
I just try to write a story which is hard enough.
- Jhumpa Lahiri.

James Thurber, on how to read:

 

I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.
- James Thurber.
 

Sharon Creech, on books and reading:

 

I love the way that each book – any book – is its own journey.

You open it, and off you go.
You are changed in some way, large or small, by having traveled with those characters.
- Sharon Creech.

Lemmy Kilmister, on books and reading:

 
There are a lot of good books around.
People don't read anymore.
It's a sad state of affairs.
Reading's the only thing that allows you to use your imagination.
When you watch films it's someone else's vision, isn't it?
- Lemmy Kilmister.

Ann Patchett, on reading fiction:

 

Reading fiction is important.

It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings.

Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.

- Ann Patchett.

I love to read.

 

I love to read.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a life.
It doesn’t mean I’m a nerd.
I only love the feeling that, even when you’re back in reality, you still feel like you’re in a different world.
- Author Unknown.

Mary Roberts Rinehart, on writing:

 

The writing career is not a romantic one.

The writer's life may be colorful, but his work itself is rather drab.

- Mary Roberts Rinehart.

Steve Kroft, on writing:

 

It's not an easy process.

People think that you're a good writer, that you just sit down and do it.
It takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of time to do it and to make it good.
- Steve Kroft.

Jhumpa Lahiri, on writing:

In fiction, plenty do the job of conveying information, rousing suspense, painting characters, enabling them to speak.

But only certain sentences breathe and shift about, like live matter in soil.

- Jhumpa Lahiri. 

Neil deGrass Tyson, on learning:

I know of no time in human history where ignorance was better than knowledge.

- Neil deGrass Tyson. 

Lisa Scottoline, on reading:

 

I read, therefore, I matter.
- Lisa Scottoline.
 

Paul Auster, on writing:

Becoming a writer is not a 'career decision' like becoming a doctor or a policeman.
You don't choose it so much as get chosen,
and once you accept the fact that you're not fit for anything else,
you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.
- Paul Auster.

Ann Patchett, on writing:

 

The idea I pursue is the one that keeps coming back to me.

The characters I think about as I'm falling asleep at night
or when I'm driving to the grocery store
are the ones I wind up writing about.
- Ann Patchett.

Walt Whitman, on writing:

 

The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote…By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.

- Walt Whitman.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, on writing:

 

You have the itch for writing born in you.

It's quite incurable.

What are you going to do with it?

- Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Irving Stone, on reading:

 

It's not macho to read?

Nonsense.
Reading is a stouthearted activity, disporting courage, keenness, stick-to-itness.
It is also, in my experience, one of the most thrilling and enduring delights of life, equal to a home run, a slam-dunk, or breaking the four-minute mile.
- Irving Stone.

Jhumpa Lahiri, on writing:

The urge to convert experience into a group of words

that are in a grammatical relation to one another

is the most basic, ongoing impulse of my life.

- Jhumpa Lahiri.

Stephen King, on writing:

 

In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives.
- Stephen King.