Writing Wednesday: 10 Writers On the Importance of Reading

A lot has been said around the reasons why writers write. But it’s not just the creating of the words that’s important, it’s the consuming of them too! For today’s Writing Wednesday we’re looking past the initial writing process and into the final product: the book itself. The question isn’t “why write,” but “why read?”

1) William Nicholson, screenwriter

“We read to know we are not alone.”

2) Ursula K. Le Guin, author

“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”

3) Joseph Addison, essayist

“Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.”

4) Garrison Keillor, author

“A book is a gift you can open again and again.”

5) Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, book editor

“There are many little ways to enlarge your world.  Love of books is the best of all.”

6) Joyce Carol Oates, writer

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.”

7) G.K. Chesterton, writer

“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

8) Vera Nazarian, writer

“Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.”

9) Neil Gaiman, author

“A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.”

10) John Waters, screenwriter

“You should never read just for ‘enjoyment.’ Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick ‘hard books.’ Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for god’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say, ‘I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.’ Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of ‘literature’? That means fiction, too, stupid.”

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