Quotes on Reading Writing

There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war. It is larger than that. The peace I am thinking of is not at the mercy of history's rule, nor is it a passive surrender to the status quo. The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one -- an activity that occurs most naturally, most often in the reading/writing world we live in. Accessible as it is, this particular kind of peace warrants vigilance.

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest.

I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television - there wasn't a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were 'reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.'

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

You must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.

I did not learn my theology all at once, but had to search constantly deeper and deeper for it. My temptations did that for me, for no one can understand Holy Scripture without practice and temptations...I t is not by reading, writing, or speculation that one becomes a theologian. Nay, rather, it is living, dying, and being damned that makes one a theologian.

Students of reading, writing and common arithmetick . . . Graecian [Greek], Roman, English and American history . . . should be rendered . . . worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.