Margaret Mahy Quotes

If you want to be a writer, don't worry so much about writing. Read as much as you can. Read as many different writers as you can. Soak up the styles.

I read in order to write. I read out of obsession with writing.

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

I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading.

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

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.

I think the cardinal rule of learning to write is learning to read first. I learned to write by learning to read.

I wanted to become a writer. I enjoyed reading as a child.

A lot of the time writers are just sponges... for what's around them, and so books are helpful for focusing your mind and literally putting it into words.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

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

Authors like reading. Go figure. So it's not surprising that we sometimes bog down in the research stage of new writing projects.

I didn't start writing until late high school and then I was just diddling. Mainly I loved to read and my writing was an outgrowth of that.

Writers don't write writing, they write reading. When I was a kid, I read four or five books a week. And that is how I became a writer.

I always try to block out an hour or so a day to read. Being a writer is a job, and reading helps train my brain in the right direction.

Writers who don't read can't write well. It's that simple. The more you read, the better you read, the better you'll write. The upside is that you can't read too much, and even 'junk' reading can be constructive.

Read the kinds of things you want to write; read the kinds of things you would never write. Learn something from every writer you read.

I really think that reading is just as important as writing when you're trying to be a writer because it's the only apprenticeship we have, it's the only way of learning how to write a story.

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.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

Sometimes reading other writers helps. You learn some little technique that turns out to be useful, or simply are reinspired by the amazing things others do.

One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they're just infested with lots of stuff.

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

All experience helps when you write.

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.