Naomi Shihab Nye, on reading:

I love the solitude of reading.

I love the deep dive into someone else's story, the delicious ache of a last page.

- Naomi Shihab Nye.

Victor Hugo, on writers:

A writer is a world trapped in a person.

- Victor Hugo.
 

Anais Nin, on books:

I have this weird obsession about buying books and looking at them with a smile, even if I won't read them soon.

At least they are mine now.

- Anais Nin.

George R. R. Martin, on books:

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone,

if it is to keep its edge.

- George R. R. Martin.

Mary Oliver, on writing:

It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line.

I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down.

I can't wait until morning - it'll be gone.

- Mary Oliver.

Elias Canetti, on writing:

The process of writing has something infinite about it.

Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation.

- Elias Canetti.

Jack Vance, on reading:

 

I read and read and read.

I read everything.

- Jack Vance.

Jhumpa Lahiri, on writing:

The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace.
Style and personality are irrelevant.
They can be formal or casual.
They can be tall or short or fat or thin.
They can obey the rules or break them.
But they need to contain a charge.
A live current, which shocks and illuminates.
 
- Jhumpa Lahiri.

René Descartes, on books:

 

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.

- René Descartes.

Orson Scott Card, on inspiration:

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day.

The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them.

Most people don't see any.

- Orson Scott Card.

Susan Sontag, on reading and writing:

Reading usually precedes writing.

And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading.

Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.

 
- Susan Sontag.

Robert Henri, on art:

 A work of art is the trace of a magnificent struggle.

- Robert Henri.

Michelangelo, on learning:

I am still learning.

- Michelangelo (at age 87).

Gloria Steinem, on writing:

 I do not like to write - I like to have written.

- Gloria Steinem.

Rainer Maria Rilke, on writing:

If, when you wake up in the morning, you can think of nothing but writing ... then you are a writer.

- Rainer Maria Rilke.

Toni Morrison, on writing:

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self,
to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar,
is the test of their power.
- Toni Morrison.

James Patterson, on reading:

If you're not reading – with your heart as well as your brain – you will be one stupid grown up.

Even worst, you'll be missing out on one of the best experiences you can possibly have.

Nowhere will you meet more interesting people than in books.

- James Patterson.

Hunter S. Thompson, on writing:

 

No music + bad TV = Bad mood & no pages.

- Hunter S. Thompson.

Stephen King, on writing:

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about.

It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.

- Stephen King

James Ellroy, on writing:

 

Cats gotta scratch.
Dogs gotta bite.
I gotta write.
- James Ellroy.