Jill Scott Quotes

I read all the time. I was reading a book I admire very much by Alice McDermot called Charming Billy.

I love 'Jane Eyre,' and I love the Bronte sisters. I actually didn't read any of them until I was in college, so I don't have quite the same connection with them that I think a lot of women do.

I have so many favorite authors; I can't name just one.

I had been an abject fan of Robert Stone since the early eighties, when I borrowed a copy of 'A Flag for Sunrise' to read on a plane to Rome. I was twenty-something, with a first novel under my belt.

There isn't a book that has changed me, but I have favourites such as 'Pride and Prejudice' which I often re-read.

The kind of stuff I usually read is a bit more on the literary side, like books that I think are influential in the sense that they're doing pulpy subject matter in a refined way. Like 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy; I loved that book.

I had 'Push' and 'The Paperboy' next to my bed for many years. Those are some of the great, great novels.

It's not a terribly original thing to say, but I love Raymond Carver. For one thing, he's fun to read out loud.

Reading was a huge part of my life as a child - we were a family of storytellers.

When I was a kid, I loved having a book in my hand. I still do. I wasn't a fast reader, but I was a steady reader. I read all of The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and Cherry Ames books.

I love the fact that 'Flowers for Algernon' is doing its part to get people reading.

I read everything by Ian McEwan, he is so elegant. I love reading anything about Shakespeare, too. He is my first love. If I had a time machine, I would be hanging out with him.

Our house was awash in books, and my mother doled out her favorites like they were special treats - which they were.

I think I learned about the relationship between books and life from Margaret Mitchell.

William Faulkner, Muriel Spark, Richard Yates, William Styron, James Salter, Alice Munro. They're very different writers, and I admire them for different reasons. The common thread, I guess, is that they remind me what's possible, why I wanted to write fiction in the first place.

William Trevor is an author I admire; his stories are subtle and powerful, and beautifully written.

I have always loved 'Stig of the Dump.' I think reading that book made me officially realise that I was a reader.

Perhaps the writer I've read the most of is Haruki Murakami, the Japanese writer, but I wouldn't necessarily say he's a favourite. I read him because I find his work so intriguing, but I don't necessarily feel I would follow this writer to the ends of the earth.

The largest two books I've ever read more than once are 'Bleak House' by Charles Dickens and 'The Stand' by Stephen King, about 1,200 pages each.

I'm often drawn in by a description of a woman thinking something familiar that's never been articulated before, as in Diane Cook's 'Somebody's Baby' or Nina Berberova's 'The Tattered Cloak.'

I read a lot of the books that I love again and again and again and try to understand how the writer did it.

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

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'm a huge fan of Toni Morrison. I just think she's so incredible. And also Nayyirah Waheed, who's a poet.

I think even great writers only write two books that you might like. When I think of my touchstone writers like Saul Bellow, I think of 'Henderson the Rain King.' With Don DeLillo, I think of 'Libra.'