Rachel Carson, on writing:

Writing is largely a matter of application and hard work,

or writing endlessly until you are satisfied that you have said what you want to say as clearly and simply as possible.

For me, that usually means many, many revisions.

- Rachel Carson.

Saul Bellow, on writing:

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.

- Saul Bellow.

Sue Grafton, on writing:

Writing isn't about the destination.

Writing is the journey that transforms the soul and gives meaning to all else.

- Sue Grafton.

Ernest Hemingway, on listening:

I like to listen.

I have learned a great deal from listening carefully.

Most people never listen.

- Ernest Hemingway.

Patricia Highsmith, on writing:

When I am thickening my plots, I like to think: 

'What if ... What if ...'

Thus, my imagination can move from the likely, 

which everyone can think of, 

to the unlikely-but-possible, 

my preferred plot.

- Patricia Highsmith.

George W. Buchanan, on reading:

The novel is an event in consciousness.

Our aim isn't to copy actuality, but to modify and recreate our sense of it.

The novelist is inviting the reader to watch a performance in his own brain.

- George W. Buchanan.

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.

Plato, on writing:

Writing is the geometry of the soul.

- Plato.

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.

Etty Hillesum, on writing:

Every word born of an inner necessity - writing must never be anything else.

- Etty Hillesum.

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.