Eclectic Reading Quotes

Well, I'm reading about the battle of New Orleans right now. I've got an eclectic reading list.

I always have kind of a few books going at the same time.

I was an omnivore at reading, so that everything I ever read contributed.

I'm an ecumenical reader, grew up with all sorts of fiction, teach writing, went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop, so my tastes and interests are broad.

But then anyone who's worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.

Usually I read several books at a time - old books, new books, fiction, nonfiction, verse, anything - and when the bedside heap of a dozen volumes or so has dwindled to two or three, which generally happens by the end of one week, I accumulate another pile.

The most important thing for any aspiring writer, is to read! And not just the sort of thing you're trying to write, be that fantasy, SF, comic books, whatever. You need to read everything.

A reader's tastes are peculiar. Choosing books to read is like making your way down a remote and winding path. Your stops on that path are always idiosyncratic. One book leads to another and another the way one thought leads to another and another. My type of reader is the sort who burrows through the stacks in the bookstore or the library (or the Web site — stacks are stacks), yielding to impulse and instinct.

If you look at my personal library, you will notice that it ranges from Henry James to Steig Larsson, from Margaret Atwood to Max Hastings. There's Jane Austen and Tom Perrotta and volumes of letters from Civil War privates. It's pretty eclectic.

Writers are voracious readers. Once I unlocked the mystery of the alphabet that led to words, a multitude of words connecting me to the world, there was no stopping me. Everything was fair game, from Louisa May Alcott to my older cousin's True Romance Magazines, from Lewis Carroll to the backs of cereal boxes. All of this fed me, but it took certain books to make me grow. I don't want to work without a sense of drama, without passion, or without both eyes open to the world around me.

I read all types of books. I read Christian books, I read black novels, I read religious books. I read stuff like 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' and 'The Dictator's Handbook' and then I turned around and read science-fiction novels.

The books on my nightstand are so bizarre, very eclectic - like, every German author, and then I have a couple of books by this ex-boyfriend of mine there. I just want to make sure that he's not too much better than I am!

I was reading Omar Khayyam, Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, L. Ron Hubbard, all sorts of philosophy. Bebop cats are like that. Curious. I wanted to know about everything.

I suppose people might consider me a 'loose' reader, as I seem willing to read anything of quality thinking and prose.

I read pretty voraciously. If it's good, I don't care what it is.

I am undependable. You might get gritty contemporary with one book, science fiction, magical realism, or high fantasy with another.

It's really, really eclectic. It's not a business book [Girlboss], but it's still a book that should make you want to get up and do things and think about your life. And for a book that looks that beautiful on a coffee table, I think that's a very special thing. So it's hopefully a new genre I guess, of book. It was so fun to put together and fun to write, that was really a pleasure.

My thoughts can sometimes be spurred by what I read, but my reading is extremely eclectic.

I read pretty eclectically - fiction, non-fiction, and poetry - and I've been inspired and influenced by a number of writers.

I'm always reading many books at a time. It might be quite unorthodox, but what I do is, since I'm always surrounded with books, I'll read a page of physics, and then I'll read a chapter of a novel that I really love, and then I'll say, "Oh well, what does that mixture do in my head?" I adore reference books. I love encyclopedias. I also like just going back to original texts, because a lot of these self-help books today.

I love to read different books on completely different subjects at the same time. I cannot focus on one. I read a few pages of literature, then I jump to philosophy and at the same time I'm reading biographies of Mahler.

Excessively narrow reading is unhelpful, certainly. Reading only Serious Literature is no better than reading only trash in this respect.

I read everything: fiction, history, science, mathematics, biography, travel.

I tend to pull nuggets out of many books - rather than having a handful of books that serve as guiding lights.

I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.