Inspirational Writers Quotes

Probably having fallen in love with music and movies at a young age and then first learning about writing by kind of following the path of writers like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs and being a rock journalist.

The 1970s were so wonderful for women writers. There were all these women, and they were seen as doing the most interesting, innovative and exciting stuff in science fiction. I was inspired by that.

There are a lot of wonderful women writers who would be good influences on writers. You've got to spread yourself out and educate yourself with all kinds of stories.

One of my favorite writers is Hans Christian Anderson. His stories speak to the times.

All good writers inspire me as I have never thought I was any good. As far as a writer who made me think I could do it, it was Henry Miller. Not because I thought he was so simple that I reckoned I could pull it off as well, but it was his freedom and guts that really moved me to want to write all the time.

I think Bellow's the greatest American writer of his century, personally. When I read him, I'm in awe.

Great writers, I discovered, were not to be bowed down before and worshipped, but embraced and befriended. Their names resounded through history not because they had massive brows and thought deep incomprehensible thoughts, but because they opened windows in the mind, they put their arms round you and showed you things you always knew but never dared to believe. Even if their names were terrifyingly foreign and intellectual sounding, Dostoevsky, Baudelaire or Cavafy, they turned out to be charming and wonderful and quite unalarming after all.

It was a long time ago: 'Angela's Ashes' by Frank McCourt. It was a great story that was lasting, and I loved it so much. I also love Nora Ephron. I gobble up everything she writes. Also, I love Anthony Bourdain, very irreverent and funny.