Francine Prose Quotes

Read a lot. Write a lot. Have fun.

Only a reader can become a writer. Develop a lively intellect and the ability to become interested in anything, no matter how mundane it might seem at first. Look for the story. Develop an eye for detail. Feed your mind and your brain: learn as much as you can about everything you can.

If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is 'Just do it!' Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write.

Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.

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.

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.

For any writers at all, read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write. That's all there is to it.

Doing interesting things and then writing about them is the best way to become a good writer.

I learnt to love reading. And then I started scribbling stories, and I liked that even more.

I think writing is the most underrated thing in Hollywood.

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

And that's what I've learned too: writing is key.

Read as much as you can, and then sit down and write.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy that kind of process.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and reading even before that. My mom still has stories that I wrote when I was in kindergarten. I was a reader and a re-reader. That's the main reason I became a writer.

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.

I am always trying to write.

The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.

You become a better writer by writing. You become a better travel writer by writing about travel.

A writer is always, always searching, even against her will, against all her better instincts, for the thread of a story. Everything is fodder. Everything is fuel. You can feel it coming on like the tingling of a sore throat. The brain never stops struggling to reshape every experience and feeling into a coherent narrative.

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

I don't know if I am a good, average, or bad writer, but I write fast. Everything I observe, my experiences and imagination come together while writing.

I do have the feeling that other writers can't help you with writing. I've gone to writers' conferences and writers' sessions and writers' clinics, and the more I see of them, the more I'm sure it's the wrong direction. It isn't the place where you learn to write.

When people ask me for secrets to writing, I say, 'Read to write.'

When you compose, it's like writing. You're like a writer. You just think all the time.