Terry Pratchett Quotes

There are 20,000 million books I could have to read, but I can pick the ones and know that I'm learning something that I didn't know before. That's the glory of writing. It's not even so much the writing, it's what you learn - especially history - because so much of it is research.

A book is a gift you can open again and again.

Being a librarian certainly helped me with my writing because it made me even more of a reader, and I was always an enthusiastic reader. Writing and reading seem to me to be different aspects of a single imaginative act.

Behind every writer stands a very large bookshelf.

Books are challenging and inspirational to me.

Each book first begins with a little idea.

A love of books has opened so many doors for me. Stories have inspired me and taught me to aspire.

Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.

I feel with writing, so much of the time, I don't know how to tap in and be spontaneous and alive on a daily basis. So I don't write every day. I'm just not disciplined, and I can't be in the groove most of the time. I feel like I'm in the groove ten days a year or something. But with reading and research, I feel like I have this incredibly instinctive pleasure-driven process that ends up working out for me and inspiring me. It's almost like a maze, like I know eventually I'll hit the heart of my play if I read enough books.

You write a book and it's like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean. You don't know if it will ever reach any shores. And there, you see, sometimes it falls in the hands of the right person.

If you don't read, you will never be a filmmaker.

Books light the fire-whether it's a book that's already written, or an empty journal that needs to be filled in.

Reading makes me want to write my own books, and just trying to understand what I see in the world around me makes me want to figure things out.

Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.

I’m not a fan of ‘write what you know.’ If you don’t know, find out. I knew nothing about the Bible before I started writing ‘The Year of Living Biblically.’ That was kind of the point – to learn.

Writers are voracious readers. Once I unlocked the mystery of the alphabet that led to words, a multitude of words connecting me to the world, there was no stopping me. Everything was fair game, from Louisa May Alcott to my older cousin's True Romance Magazines, from Lewis Carroll to the backs of cereal boxes. All of this fed me, but it took certain books to make me grow. I don't want to work without a sense of drama, without passion, or without both eyes open to the world around me.

It’s not just the adage ‘write what you know,’ it’s about gathering up all of the knowledge and experience you’ve collected up to now to help you dive into the things you don’t know.

For the years I spent working on it, 'Constellation' was the only novel I knew how to write, so maybe I still abided by the maxim? Regardless, I prefer the maxim: Write what you want to know, rather than what you already know.

All I know for certain is that reading is of the most intense importance to me; if I were not able to read, to revisit old favorites and experiment with names new to me, I would be starved - probably too starved to go on writing myself.

Research for fiction is a funny thing: you go looking for one piece of information, and find something altogether different.

I'm ever curious about the world. I'm driven to go out and find new things to write about. Having a vivid imagination is also a plus.

A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.

You can spend a day in a library and feel: 'Great, I've done a day's work.' But it's only research, not writing.

One of the greatest gifts my brother and I received from my mother was her love of literature and language. With their boundless energy, libraries open the door to these worlds and so many others. I urge young and old alike to embrace all that libraries have to offer.