Good reader…
“Tis the good reader that makes the good book.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
The sorcery of books…
That is the sorcery of books…. All people can be wise by reading of books.”
– Puck of Pook’s Hill, Rudyard Kipling
Quote from Jane Austen
“It is very unfair to judge of anybody’s character without an intimate knowledge of their situation.”
– Jane Austen (Emma)
Books…
For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.
—Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Explaining too much…
When a writer tries to explain too much, he’s out of time before he begins.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
About Writing
In the very act of writing I felt pleased with what I did. There was the pleasure of having words come to me, and the pleasure of ordering them, re-ordering them, weighing one against another. Pleasure also in the imagination of the story, the feeling that it could mean something. Mostly I was glad to find out that I could write at all. In writing you work toward a result you won’t see for years, and can’t be sure you’ll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel it happening. I was saving my life with every word I wrote, and I knew it.
Tobias Wolff
Writing teaches writing…
“What is the best way to write? Each of us has to discover her own way by writing. Writing teaches writing. No one can tell you your own secret.”
– Gail Sher
Improving the mind…
“And of course she must improve her mind by extensive reading.”
– Pride & Prejudice (2005)
A transmitted disease…
“Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.”
– Jane Yolen
Eating and reading…
“Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”
– C.S. Lewis
