Cynthia Ozick Quotes

I, personally, have found reading a continual support to writing.

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.

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

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

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

I never thought I'd be a writer. I never thought I'd be able to read a book, let alone write one. So if books like this inspire kids to write, or even read a whole book, I think it's good.

I wanted to write.

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

I was quite a reader before I became a writer.

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

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.

There is no motivation higher than being a good writer.

Writers are nerds.

I love to read, and I've always loved to write.

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

If you want to take writing on, you should pay writing the respect it deserves, which is to say, reading it.

I've always been writing.

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.

I don't believe for one moment you can write well what you wouldn't read for pleasure.