Markus Zusak Quotes

When I first wanted to be a writer, I learned to write prose by reading poetry.

Writing is a subtle art that is reached mostly by self-discovery and experimentation.

I've been writing as long as I've been able to form words. I never wrote with an idea of publishing anything until I began working on '[To Kill a] Mockingbird'. I think that what went before may have been a rather subconscious form of learning how to write, of training myself.

Writing, in any sense that matters, cannot be taught. It can only be learned by each separate one of us in his own way, by the use of his own powers of imagination and perception, the ability to learn the lessons he has set for himself.

I'm inspired by playwrights, novelists, poets: The value of language has been a lifelong passion of mine. I enjoy it. I'm good at it.

My writing improved the more I wrote - and the more I read good writing, from Shakespeare on down.

No, I have to really focus, especially when I'm writing because I wanna be good at it.

I don't think I can pick apart how I was influenced by which author. But these were the authors whose books I went back to again and again when I was in high school and college, when I first started trying to write stories.

Writing teaches writing.

I'm not a writer who teaches. I'm a teacher who writes.

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

Writing was something that came easily to me and there's so many great producers who just teach you so much.

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.

You can't learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can't learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can't learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.

You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.

To write you had to read so I backed into reading.

Pay attention to your passions. They are the key to starting and finishing the book you are meant to write. I don't believe in talent. I believe in passion.

I've lost my writing skills since college. I couldn't write a book. It would take a long time.

Though not all reading children grow up to be writers, I take it that most creative writers must in their day have been reading children.

Writing is a trade ... which is learned by writing.

I learned to write by writing.

That's a very good way to learn the craft of writing - from reading.

Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.

I really enjoy English and poetry and writing classes. You do get writer's block when you're writing music, and having inspiration from other great writers is great. You have to look for inspiration because sometimes music isn't the only thing that you can look at.