Literary Guidance Quotes

Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, and so many others were my dearest friends and greatest teachers.

Books have always helped me make sense of things. With any life experience, you can find someone who has documented it in a poetic way.

The idea that a book can advise a woman how to capture a man is touchingly naive. Books advising men how to capture a woman are far less common, perhaps because few men are willing to admit to such a difficulty. For both sexes, I recommend a good novel, offering scenarios you might learn from, if only because they reflect a lot of doubt.

Well, I hate it when authors come into a school and they say to kids, 'Write from your heart, only write what you know, and write from your heart.' I hate that because it's useless. I've written over 300 books - not one was written from my heart. Not one. They were all written for an audience, they were all written to entertain a certain audience.

I was rescued by librarians. It was librarians who said 'maybe you would like to read The Hardy Boys as well as Nancy Drew.' It is true for me, as for so many countless others, that librarians saved my life, my internal life.

... But he recommended the books which charmed her leisure hours, he encouraged her taste, and corrected her judgment; he made reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise.

Who were my mentors in poetry and literature? This is a matter of opinion. Some see in my books the influences of authors whose names, in my ignorance, I have not even heard, while others see the influences of poets whose names I have heard but whose writings I have not read. And what is my opinion? From whom did I receive nurture? Not every man remembers the name of the cow which supplied him with each drop of milk he has drunk.

I Need a Good Book I need a good story. I need a good book. The kind that explodes Off the shelf. I need some good writing, Alive and exciting, To contemplate all by myself. I need a good novel, I need a good read. I probably need Two or three. I need a good tale Of love and betrayal Or perhaps an adventure at sea. I need a good saga. I need a good yarn. A momentous and mightily Or slight one. But with thousands and thousands And thousands of books, I need someone to tell me The right one. -John Lithgow

I feel very conscious of my influences. T.H. White is very important for me.

The best writing advice I had was [in] ‘Heinlein’s Rules for Writers’ by (American science fiction author) Robert A. Heinlein. His first rule is that you must write, and I was already doing that, but his second rule is, ‘You must finish what you write,’ and that had a big impact on me.

But it is not at all unthinkable for anyone to tell a writer how to write. It comes with the territory.

Here's to the good Nuns for telling me what books NOT to read!

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.

Once a week I would meet up with the coolest teacher and we'd go over my work. All my friends were like, Soooo... once a week at lunch you meet up with Mr. Schulenberg to talk about poetry. They all thought I was having sex with my teacher. But I really just loved to write and it was a nice outlet.

I always advise children who ask me for tips on being a writer to read as much as they possibly can. Jane Austen gave a young friend the same advice, so I'm in good company there.

It's my experience that very few writers, young or old, are really seeking advice when they give out their work to be read. They want support; they want someone to say, "Good job."

If I could chat with anyone, it would be Claire Messud, because I think she could tell me how to get better as a writer as I age.

I can't stand it when people say, "If you're writing a novel, you should read this and that." Because it's like giving someone another person's prescription. How do you know that's what they need?

All literature, all philosophical treatises, all the voices of antiquity are full of examples for imitation, which would all lie unseen in darkness without the light of literature.

A great model for this is the way that Dante calls on Virgil at the beginning of 'The Inferno,' 'The Divine Comedy,' to help guide him through the underworld.

I'd like to get more involved in that world. I'm better when I'm teamed up with an experienced writer - when I potentially have someone guiding me. But I'm getting involved and I'm learning a lot.

The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question.

The message of guidance that neither politics nor philosophy nor religion now seems able to provide, we look for in modern literature.

I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people, take bad books away from people, give them better books.

Come, my best Friends! my Books! and lead me on.