Molly Antopol Quotes

I think the few writers who influenced me most in writing short stories are Alice Munro and Grace Paley. They're very different, and I can't do what they do, but reading them gives me hope that I'll learn something from them.

I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.

One of my favorite modern American authors is Denis Johnson. I'm deeply inspired by all of his work - I rip him off constantly.

I'm a novelist who read a lot as a kid. When you grow up on books and then grow up to write books, famous authors are a lot more meaningful to you than TV and movie stars.

Like many authors, I caught the writing bug during my teenage years. I don't remember the exact day or year, but I remember that reading S.E. Hinton's 'The Outsiders' sparked my interest in writing.

I don't think I can pick apart how I was influenced by which author. But these were the authors whose books I went back to again and again when I was in high school and college, when I first started trying to write stories.

The book that first made me want to be a writer is Flannery O'Connor's short story collection 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.'

I would be honored if someone reads my books and it inspires them to write their own work.

Ben Karlin is a friend of mine and was a writer on 'The Daily Show.' He's just put out a book and asked a bunch of writers from various disciplines to contribute. It was called 'Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me,' and of course I agreed, and then I actually had to sit down and write it. God, writing fiction is terrifying.

For me, reading books and writing them are tied together. The words of other writers teach me and refresh me and inspire me.

When I read a book I liked, I would get a pen and one of my father's legal pads and rewrite it from memory as if I had thought of it myself. It was a clear sign that I wanted to be involved in writing, even if it was just pretend at that point.

I feel lucky that I get to read and publish stories that are not necessarily overtly horror in 'Best Horror of the Year.'

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

I've always been a little bit more of a novel reader than a short story reader. I think the first books that made me want to be a writer were novels.

I suppose I'm most influenced by any good, commercial writer. I learn from everyone.

When it comes to writers, I'm a huge fan of Ian McEwan. I've never taken a writing course, but reading and deconstructing his novels has been as good a lesson as any.

Like most authors, I also love to read.

All writers I know are readers first and foremost, and that's why you become a writer.

Rowling is a luminous storyteller. I love her sense of humor and the intricate wizarding world she built around Hogwarts. I think all writers aspire to be like her, to capture readers like she does. But I didn't think about 'Harry Potter' when I wrote 'The Bone Season.'

Probably I, like a lot of people, became a writer in imitation of or in homage to the books I enjoyed. When you're so captivated by something, you think, could I do that? Hmm, let me try.

But really, it was reading that led me to writing. And in particular, reading the American classics like Twain who taught me at an early age that ordinary lives of ordinary people can be made into high art.

Oh, I think every author is inspired by all of the books that she reads.

I was quite a reader before I became a writer.

And out of a desire essentially to imitate what I was reading, I began to write, like a clever monkey.

Usually I decide on what it is I'm writing next by the books I'm reading.