Of all things I liked books best. My father had a large library and whenever I could manage I tried to satisfy my passion for reading.
I think the written word is my first love. I was just a very imagination - centered child and a big part of that imaginary life came from reading.
The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.
My first love was reading, which inspired me to write.
I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.
. . . finally, I couldn't imagine how I could live without books, and I stopped dreaming about marrying that Chinese prince. . . .
The biggest book for me, when I was fifteen, was Crime and Punishment, which I read in a kind of fever. When I put it down, I thought, if this is what novels are then I want to be a novelist.
I am a literary animal. For me, everything ends in literature.
I think the book you always like best is the one you're about to write.
My dedication to trying to be a poet started very, very young, and I was very well encouraged by good teachers and by older friends and so on, so I think it is a benediction, and I also think it is a calling, a duty.
People who fall in love with books never really stop falling.
I have never loved any writer as much as Hemingway.
Writing is a divine art, and the more I write and read the more I love it.
I don't write because there's an audience. I write because there is literature.
I read constantly. If I don't have a good book, I'm beside myself.
The greatest gift is a passion for reading.
The sincere love of books has nothing to do with cleverness or stupidity any more than any other sincere love. It is a quality of character, a freshness, a power of pleasure, a power of faith. A silly person may delight in reading masterpieces just as a silly person may delight in picking flowers. A fool may be in love with a poet as he may be in love with a woman.
I am very lucky that I get to tell stories for a living. I love being able to grab people's attention, to keep them turning the pages, to make them stay awake all night.
If anybody would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces, and gardens and fine dinners, and wine, and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I would not read books, I would not be a king.
We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay.
Many have an irresistible itch for writing.
Naturally, people's image is of a performer, but the reality of it is the writing for me has always been the most important thing and the most rewarding thing.
Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.
My first and last love will always be fiction. It's the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do at night. I love the novel because it's like a love affair. You can just fall into it and keep going, and you never know where it's going to take you.
What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!
