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.

Caitlin Moran, on books:

Read as many books as you can.

Every book you read means you absorb another life.

It's the most pleasurable power-up ever.

- Caitlin Moran.

A Dream Within a Dream, by Edgar Allan Poe:

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
 

Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

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.

One of the best ways to get through the cold of winter:

Keep warm and read a good book.

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.

Introvert insight:

Solitude matters.
And for some people it’s the air they breathe.

– Susan Cain.

For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourish as eating.

– Jonathan Rauch.

People say things to me like, ‘It’s really cool that you don’t go out and get drunk all the time and go to clubs.’
I appreciate that, but I’m an introverted kind of person just by nature.

– Emma Watson.

I am primarily a loner.

I don’t go to clubs.

I don’t hang out with people.

I don’t know many people.

It’s just the way it ended up.

It’s not a sob story; it’s fine for me.

– Henry Rollins.

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.

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.

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.

Mary Higgins Clark, on writing:

Writing is storytelling.

No matter how you slice it, you're saying, 'Once upon a time.'

That's what writing is all about.

- Mary Higgins Clark.

Stan Lee, on writing and reading:

The only advice anybody can give is, if you wanna be a writer, keep writing.

And read all you can, read everything.

- Stan Lee.