Meg Wolitzer Quotes

My childhood was surrounded by books and writing. From a very early age I was fascinated by storytelling, by the printed word, by language, by ideas. So I would seek them out.

I think the short story is a very underrated art form. We know that novels deserve respect.

I love it when people want to interpret my books.

A book is like a piece of rope; it takes on meaning only in connection with the things it holds together.

I have read a number of books, starting with novels, that I particularly liked.

I read a lot of fiction.

Both types of books - fiction and nonfiction - are a search for story. As a writer and a reader, there's nothing I crave more than a good story!

I loved reading when I was young. I was just completely taken by stories. And I remember taking that into English literature at school and taking that into Shakespeare and finding that opened up a whole world of self-expression to me that I didn't have access to previously.

But it's not just a game of finding literary references.

Read, read, read. Read good books. You will strengthen your understanding of story. Your vocabulary will be the richer for it.

I was an English-literature major, and that's all about stories and narratives.

I love fiction and read novels constantly.

Novelists do not swing on the same pendulums as critics.

I grew up reading a lot on literature and all of that.

I think the benefit of being a writer is that I'm looking for the subtext on the page, because all good writing has subtext. And as a writer, you look at the big scope of things, the big story, rather than just your individual story line, because I think it's important to know what you're in and how you fit into it.

I was a literature major in college and that was my thing, books.

The nature of good fiction is that it dwells in ambiguity.

I have a huge passion for literature.

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

The problem with themes is that writers don't realise they are themes until someone points them out.

Some things in literature are inexplicable.

It's the story that counts.

Even the worst book can give us something to think about.

I used to say, read as much as you can. Now I say, read the best that you can, the stories that resonate with you, the books that are important to you. Try to read, not only as a reader, but also as a writer, to deconstruct how the author is telling his or her story.

Young screenwriters are always very frustrated when they talk to me. They say, 'How do we get to be a screenwriter?' I say, 'You know what you do? I'll tell you the secret, it's easy: Read 'Hamlet.' You know? Then read it again, and read it again, and read it until you understand it. Read 'King Lear,' and then read 'Othello.'