Karen Thompson Walker Quotes

An editor is like a professional reader, and as I became a better reader, I also became a better writer.

I think writing and reading are completely synergistic; not necessarily in that one has to be a good reader to be a good writer or vice versa, but that they so inform each other.

There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.

To be a good editor or a good writer, I think you really need to be a great reader first.

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.

An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.

We read often with as much talent as we write.

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry - writing at writing.

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

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

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

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

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.

One can't write without having read - you have to read before beginning to write - and universities offer a very good opportunity to read.

Read a ton. Take a workshop course so you learn to give and get criticism.

I don't see how you can write well if you're not reading well at the same time. I think the only risk is reading too many books of one 'type' in a row.

My father told us all the time: to become a good writer takes writing. Because the more you do it, the better you get at it. It's like bull-riding. You can't do it once, you know. You've got to practice it and practice it.

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.

I've always been a reader and a writer.

There is a whole industry in America of people who want to write, and those who teach it. Even if the students don't end up writing, what's good about them taking the courses is, they become great readers, learning to appreciate the writing.

The manner in which I learned to read and write, not only had great influence on my own mind, as I acquired it with the most perfect ease, so much so, that I have no recollection whatever of learning the alphabet

Teaching regularly has made me an even more adept reader, I think. The kind of teaching I do is more like editing than anything else. The kind of editing book editors used to do before lunch. The kind of editing I used to do as a radio documentary maker.

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