David Sedaris Quotes

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

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.

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

If there's any single talent a writer needs, it's persistence. If you can keep at your writing and you can learn as you write, you can tell any story you want to tell.

The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, and write, write, write.

Writing is a difficult trade which must be learned slowly by reading great authors; by trying at the outset to imitate them; by daring then to be original; by destroying one's first productions.

Like most-maybe all- writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books.

I started writing by doing small related things but not the thing itself, circling it and getting closer. I had no idea how to write fiction. So I did journalism because there were rules I could learn. You can teach someone to write a news story. They might not write a great one, but you can teach that pretty easily.

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.

Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.

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.

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

Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.

There's a lot of young authors out there, and people do seem to forget: in order to write well, you do need to have some experience.

I got into writing because books and stories were always a big part of my life. I loved listening to them and then reading them, and I loved making them up.

There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer - reading is so much a part of it.

Writers cannot simply have a go, imagining it's easier to produce a story than a novel because fewer words are required. Have a go by all means; be intrepid, but be equipped.

With each book, you get better as a writer. There is no back door to the industry. Read in the genre you want to write, as the more you read, the better you will get as an author.

If you are a good writer - and I think I am - you are able to handle any kind of group and imagine their lives.

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.

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.

When you write a book, you're an expert, and people look at you in a different way.

Writers are nerds.

I worked with several writers at the University of Michigan: Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, Eileen Pollack, Laura Kasischke, and Thomas Lynch, who told me the same thing over and over again: Persist. Read, write, and improve: tell your stories.

I write because I like to make things and the only things I am good at making things with are words.