#reading

Sure, I knew the differences between a space opera and a hard-boiled detective story and a historical novel...but I never cared about such differences. It seemed to me, then as now, that there are good stories and bad stories, and that was the only distinction that truly mattered. ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#genre-fiction #reading #historical-fiction

I don’t have the heart to tell my sons that the older one gets, the less funny literature becomes—and they would refuse to believe me if I tried to explain that some people don’t think jokes even belong in proper books. I won’t bother breaking the news that, if they remain readers, they will insist on depressing themselves for about a decade of their lives, in a concerted search of gravitas through literature. ↗

— Nick Hornby

#funny

If you've ever read one of those articles that asks notable people to list their favorite books, you may have been impressed or daunted to see them pick Proust or Thomas Mann or James Joyce. You might even feel sheepish about the fact that you reread Pride and Prejudice or The Lord of the Rings, or The Catcher in the Rye or Gone With the Wind every couple of years with some much pleasure. Perhaps, like me, you're even a little suspicious of their claims, because we all know that the books we've loved best are seldom the ones we esteem the most highly - or the ones we'd most like other people to think we read over and over again. ↗

— Laura Miller

#lit #reading #love

I am always chilled and astonished by the would-be writers who ask me for advice and admit, quite blithely, that they "don't have time to read." This is like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he didn't have time to buy any rope or pitons. ↗

— Stephen King

#writing #writers-on-writing

The pauper is vulnerable to pride and pride is the destroyer of man's glory. ↗

— Jaachynma N.E. Agu

#barack-obama #be-different #book-reading #chiyson #good-life

Interest is never enough. If it doesn't haunt you, you'll never write it well. What haunts and obsesses you may, with luck and labour, interest your readers. What merely interests you is sure to bore them. (from Workbook) ↗

— Steven Heighton

#obsession #reading #writing-advice

Accept criticism. If you do not offer your work for criticism and accept that criticism, meaning give it serious thought and attention, then you will never improve. ↗

— Theodora Goss

#blog-post #books #reading #writing #writing-advice

If you’re a writer, your first duty, a duty you owe to yourself and your readers, and to your writing itself, is to become wonderful. To become the best writer you can possibly be. ↗

— Theodora Goss

#blog-post #books #reading #writing #writing-advice

My advice is to write during commercial breaks, and read while your favorite TV show is on mute.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#writing #writing-advice

And I am a writer, writer of fictions I am the heart that you call home And I've written pages upon pages Trying to rid you from my bones... ↗

— Colin Meloy

#decemberists #engine-driver #love #home