Writing fiction is not a profession that leaves one well-disposed toward reading fiction. One starts out loving books and stories, and then one becomes jaded and increasingly hard to please. I read less and less fiction these days, finding the buzz and the joy I used to get from fiction in ever stranger works of non-fiction, or poetry.
Let every book-worm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome, he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it the widest circulation that newspapers and magazines, penny and halfpenny, can afford.
Reading Chaucer is like brushing through the dewy grass at sunrise.
Reading Chekhov was just like the angels singing to me.
In the highest civilization the book is still the highest delight.
Books have become our dearest companions, yielding exquisite delights and inspiring lofty aims.
The clerisy are those who seek, and find, delight and enlargement of life in books. The clerisy are those for whom reading is a personal art.
From the time I began to read, as a child, I loved to feel their heft in my hand and the warm spot caused by their intimate weight in my lap; I loved the crisp whisper of a page turning, the musky odor of old paper and the sharp inky whiff of new pages. Leather bindings sent me into ecstasy. I even loved to gaze at a closed book and daydream about the possibilities inside.
I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books.
The very best of all Merwin: I have been reading William since 1952, and always with joy.
I love poetry - just to read it and be around it.
One of the great pleasures of reading Tom Wolfe - of still reading Tom Wolfe - is the sense of awe he consistently inspires.
To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.
I think the purpose of the writer is to help us see. The writer is someone who can perhaps have the joy of helping others see.
A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.
To be amused at what you read - that is the great spring of quotation.
There's a joy in writing short stories, a wonderful sense of reward when you pull certain things off.
One of my greatest pleasures is falling into a story someone else has written.
We're so used to seeing Agatha Christie's work on screen that going back to the original is a real joy.
I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!
The fun one can have writing books about books is limitless, to be honest.
The thing that most interests me about writing - there are lots of things, but the thing I can't do without - is the hit of happiness a lovely sentence delivers.
Writing a long and substantial book is like having a friend and companion at your side, to whom you can always turn for comfort and amusement, and whose society becomes more attractive as a new and widening field of interest is lighted in the mind.
Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time spent, as a good book.
I feel devoutly thankful to have been born fond of writing.
