Seneca the Younger Quotes

When the modern scholar cites from a classic text, the quotation seems to burn a hole in his own drab page.

Too much is written by the men who can't write about the men who do write.

'The New Yorker's fiction podcast I like a lot, where they have authors pick short stories by other authors that appeared in 'The New Yorker.'

I'm sure I've been influenced by every fine writer I've ever read, from Dickens and Austen to Auden and Jane Hirshfield. And also, the short stories of Updike, Cheever, Munro, Alice Adams, and Doris Lessing. And the plays of Oscar Wilde. And paintings by Alice Neel and Matisse.

Well, 'The Wellspring' was written from 1983 to 1986. And it had a section in the beginning that was poems that began from others' experience.

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

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

The study of literature threatens to become a kind of paleontology of failure, and criticism a supercilious psychoanalysis of authors.

Of all fatiguing, futile, empty trades, the worst, I suppose, is writing about writing.

When it comes to writers, I'm a huge fan of Ian McEwan. I've never taken a writing course, but reading and deconstructing his novels has been as good a lesson as any.

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

And people do enjoy the plays at completely different levels. And, likewise, they enjoy the authorship question... at completely different levels.

The question of manuscript changes is very important for literary criticism, the psychology of creation and other aspects of the study of literature.

The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.

In the New Yorker library, I have long been shelved between Nadine Gordimer and Brendan Gill; an eerie little space nestled between high seriousness of purpose and legendary lightness of touch.

I don't think of myself as a critic at all. I'm a reviewer and essayist. I mainly hope to share with others my pleasure in the books and authors I write about, though sometimes I do need to cavil and point out shortcomings.

The author may not interpret. But he must tell why and how he wrote his book.

I love Toni Morrison and Jeanette Winterson. 'The Passion' is my favourite book.

My number-one website is brainpickings.org. It opens you up to different authors and gives insights into the literary world. Reading about the love letters novelist Vladimir Nabokov wrote to his wife Vera blew my mind. Fascinating.

All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept.

Fiction needs writers and readers, and writers should cultivate both.

I'll read anything Anne Carson writes, anything J. M. Coetzee writes, and anything Cormac McCarthy writes. I'll drop whatever I'm doing to read a new Mary Ruefle essay.

I don't think that books are wondrous, magical things that come from nowhere. It's important that a book has clues about where and how it was written.

I adore Toni Morrison. I think we would all be better writers if we read more of her.

Even the best novelists are rarely congratulated on the quality of their observations about contemporary life.