Reading. Reading was the stable backdrop against which my life was played.

- Lynne Sharon Schwartz

My head aches, my eyes burn, my arms and legs have given up, and my face in the mirror has a grayish cast. The bed, across the room, calls in its unm…

- Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Nothing is as horrendous as imagining the times of happiness from an environment which is that of hell.

- Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Leave the dishes unwashed and the demands on your time unanswered. Be ruthless and refuse to do what people ask of you.

- Lynne Sharon Schwartz

What a feat of transmission: the emotive powers of the book, with no local habitation, pass safely from writer to reader, unmangled by printing and b…

- Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Getting away from being 'a good girl' is important because it's impossible to be a 'good girl' and a writer at the same time.

- Lynne Sharon Schwartz

I have managed not to finish certain books. With barely a twinge of conscience, I hurl down what bores me or doesn't give what I crave: ecstasy, tran…

- Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Like the bodies of dancers or athletes, the minds of readers are genuinely happy and self-possessed only when cavorting around, doing their stretches…

- Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Once I got started, I wanted the life of a writer so fiercely that nothing could stop me. I wanted the intensity, the sense of aliveness that came fr…

- Lynne Sharon Schwartz