Dashiell Hammett Quotes

Chekhov was as important to me as anybody as a writer.

How far the existence of the Academy has influenced French literature, either for good or for evil, is an extremely dubious question.

I am a big devourer of James Baldwin.

There was a period... when I used to say, with as much ferocity as I could muster, 'I hate Henry James, and I wish he was dead.' Influence is perdition.

Like most writers, I've read a lot of Hemingway, and I admire him greatly.

I grew up in Nagpur, and I first started enjoying the author Harishankar Parsai. He wrote mostly satire, essays on the current situation and social issues. He wrote many books and I think he was my first influence.

Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.

You didn't grow up in the shadow of John Steinbeck. He put you on his shoulders and gave you all the light you wanted.

Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress.

It would be hard to exaggerate Ernest Hemingway's influence over American literature, but his influence on our lives is probably larger still.

'The Dante Club' was one of America's most important book clubs, as their Wednesday night meetings ultimately led to our country's first exposure to Dante's poetry on a wide scale.

In France, for instance, one magazine writer was convinced that On The Road had been a huge influence on Lost Souls and was crushed to learn that I hadn't read the one until after I'd written the other.

Really important books to me are the classics. I try very hard to read them well - you know, especially once I got serious about writing. So, reading Tolstoy several times - 'War and Peace,' 'The Kreutzer Sonata' - all those were really important to me.

I'm not sure there's a difference between books that affected the way I see the world and books that influenced me as a writer.

Literature is news that stays news.

Stephen King in many respects is a wonderful writer. He has made a contribution. People in the future will be able to pick up Stephen King's books and learn a lot about who we were by reading those books.

A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.

I admire American literature, both contemporary and classic - 'Moby-Dick' is just about the best book in the world - and I admire British literature for its insistence on dealing with social class. It may have been an influence.

The books I read, if they intrude on my writing, do so as weather will pass through and touch a landscape - affecting it, yes, but only now and then leaving a permanent mark.

Janet Malcolm's probably the writer I most admire and who's most influenced me.

If literature isn't everything, it's not worth a single hour of someone's trouble.

Iris Murdoch did influence my early novels very much, and influence is never entirely good.

One of the true pleasures of my life has been the work of John Steinbeck. He was one of the people who turned my life around. I had no direct relationship with him, unfortunately.

Many bad books have had great influence.

Philip Roth has been a huge influence on me. The early books I read in my teens and twenties.