The most important thing for a writer to do is to write. It really doesn't matter what you write as long as you are able to write fluidly, very quickly, very effortlessly. It needs to become not second nature but really first nature to you. And read; you need to read and you need to read excellent books and then some bad books. Not as many bad books, but some bad books, so that you can see what both look like and why both are what they are.
Every book that doesn't first have to get past a gatekeeper or two, or 10, before being put in front of the public will be worse.
How to read "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"? Why, very quickly, to begin with, and perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do.
One of the more interesting things I've learnt since becoming a writer is that if you like the book, you'll generally like the person. It doesn't always work in reverse - there are huge numbers of lovely people out there writing not very good books.
Books are like eggs -- best when fresh.
It is not how many books thou hast, but how good; careful reading profiteth, while that which is full of variety delighteth.
Ive read an awful lot of books, Ive read alot of awful books
We are never allowed to forget that some books are badly written; we should remember that sometimes they're badly read, too.
I don't see why a book shouldn't be intellectually sound, entertaining, and fun to read. Historians who write academic history, which is unreadable, are basically wasting their time.
Good books are irrefutable, and bad books refute themselves.
It's a rare book that wins the battle against drooping eyelids.
For books are as meats and viands are; some of good, some of evil sub-stance.
Usually, when somebody really hates your book, they're not going to waste time on it, telling you what you need to work on.
I'm not very much of a reader really, because I find much of it very bad, very uninteresting, very speculative.
[N]othing about a book is so unmistakable and so irreplaceable as the stamp of the cultured mind. I don't care what the story is about or what may be the momentary craze for books that appear to have been hammered out by the village blacksmith in a state of intoxication; the minute you get the easy touch of the real craftsman with centuries of civilisation behind him, you get literature.
By the usual reckoning, the worst books make the best films.
That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.
What should a good children’s book be like? If you ask me, I can tell you after thinking long and hard: It must be good.
There is an enormous redundancy in every well-written book. With a well-written book I only read the right-hand page and allow my mind to work on the left-hand page. With a poorly written book I read every word.
Hardcover books are fairly expensive these days and to read one requires a significant commitment of time in our busy society. So I want to make sure that when readers buy one of my books they get something they're familiar with.
The smaller the ball used in the sport, the better the book.
Books are like sapphires; they must be polished - polished! or else you insult your readers.
It does not matter how many books you have, but how good the books are which you have.
The better the book the more room for the reader.
It was a book to kill time for those who like it better dead.
