Claire Messud Quotes

I'm not a writer. I like being a reader.

Literature has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I can't think back before a time that I didn't love writing and reading. When I was really young, my mother would read poems to me. I loved Edgar Allan Poe - I am sure I didn't understand it, but I loved it.

I've always been a reader and a writer.

I grew up loving books and stories. Reading became my favourite pastime, and you have to be a reader before you can be a writer.

I've found that writers who don't read really can't write.

I guess the important thing for young writers is to read.

You can't write if you don't read.

When I read, I'm purely a reader.

I love to read, and I love to write. I love to read. You have no idea how many books I have.

I could read at a very early age and I loved stories, losing myself in stories, novels.

If you enjoy reading something, read it.

One of the most important elements of my identity is my identity as a reader. I love to read - really, if I'm honest with myself, it's practically the only activity that I truly love to do.

You learn to write by reading, and my experiences and tastes as a reader are pretty wide.

I don't read. I don't like to read 'Harry Potter' or anything like that. It's not my style.

We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.

I love to read, and I've always loved to write.

My mother was a huge, huge reader. I think I picked up very early how precious it was to write things in books and have people like my mother glued to the page.

We're not just writers; we're readers probably more than anything else. That's how you learn how to write and how you learn to appreciate good writing: by reading.

Are you a reader? If you aren't a reader, you might as well forget trying to be a writer.

I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see writing and reading as completely related. One almost couldn't exist without the other.

So I grew up in a very book-friendly environment and my education as a writer was reading. I think that's the best education. Reading, and taking from the people I admired.

Part of my job as Children's Laureate is to visit schools and talk about my love of books and stories and encourage them all to do it as well - to read, to write, to never be afraid of their own voice. Because we all have something to say.

I read little nonfiction, but I have no boundaries about the fiction I relish. The only unfailing criterion is that I can hitch my heart to the imagined world and read on.

I read, therefore I'm interested in writers.

Whenever there's an opportunity to celebrate the written word and celebrate the folks that read the written word, and, I think, to encourage other writers to write and encourage folks to read more and get connected to it in a personal way, it's a positive thing.