Erica Jong Quotes

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.

I have a lot of respect and love for children's books.

I really began to love to read while in high school, and my favorite authors were my heroes: J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut.

Books guided my life from high school, and the greatest, most interesting, most provocative, funniest, smartest people who ever lived in the last 200 or 300 years wrote those books. I would fall in love with Victor Hugo and read not just 'Les Miserables,' but 'Bug-Jargal' and 'The Toilers of the Sea' and so forth.

I always love writing about children.

We never had books at home, but my dad, seeing how keen I was to read, took me to Islington Library when I was about eight and we pulled out two - a Biggles and a science fiction novel. I never got the ace fighter pilot but fell in love with all things to do with the future and space. Isaac Asimov soon became my guiding star.

I loved to read, still do, and it seemed that the writing was a result of the love of books and reading and libraries.

But, for instance, when I was awfully young, I read all the Oz books. They were an enormous influence on me.

I think Judy Blume, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz are the three authors responsible for my being where I am today. I owe them a lot.

To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing.

I write out of gratitude for all the books I have loved over the years.

I love to read. But I loved to read a lot longer than I started to love writing.

I started to read at a very early age, and I just thought that books and reading were really the most wonderful thing that life had to offer. I think I wrote my very first piece of fiction at the age of 12, but then I didn't write any more for quite a long time.

My heroes were never scientists. They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood, you know, good writers.

All my big heroes are literary, writers.

My first love was reading, which inspired me to write.

I love books; my suitcases are always full of them. Books and shoes. I read when I am sad, when I am happy, when I am nervous. My favourite British author is Jane Austen, and my favourite American one is John O'Hara.

I became a writer because I love books, and I believe in their power.

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.

Perhaps it is partly that we need to love books ourselves as parents, grandparents and teachers in order to pass on that passion for stories to our children. It's not about testing and reading schemes, but about loving stories and passing on that passion to our children.

I love fantasy. I grew up reading fantasy.

I think that kids are a wonderful, wonderful reader to have in your head.

I love it when people want to interpret my books.

Books stay with me and have shaped me and made huge impacts on my life.

Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.