Learning Through Writing Quotes

I write books to find out about things.

I write to learn the flow of history.

We never read without profit if with the pen or pencil in our hand we mark such ideas as strike us by their novelty, or correct those we already possess.

When I don't know the answer to something, I write a book about it because it gives me a chance to explore it and go to some people who do have the answers.

I’m not a fan of ‘write what you know.’ If you don’t know, find out. I knew nothing about the Bible before I started writing ‘The Year of Living Biblically.’ That was kind of the point – to learn.

In time I began to understand that it's when you start writing that you really find out what you don't know and need to know.

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write about it.

It's the writing that teaches you.

Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises.

That adage about 'Write what you know' is basically the opposite of the way I function. I write about what I'm curious to find out.

There are 20,000 million books I could have to read, but I can pick the ones and know that I'm learning something that I didn't know before. That's the glory of writing. It's not even so much the writing, it's what you learn - especially history - because so much of it is research.

No writing is a waste of time – no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good.

Writing is a job, a craft, and you learn it by trying to write every day and by facing the page with humility and gall. And you have to love to read books, all kinds of books, good books. You are not looking for anything in particular; you are just letting stuff seep in.