A Quote by Anne Tyler

But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.

Anne Tyler

Quote Topics

Book Either Hope Read Shine Story Think Through Transparency Want Write Writer

Quote Author

Anne Tyler
American - Novelist
Born: October 25, 1941

I hope to shine through my transparency and just let people know that we are all the same. I want children to look at things different like "You're shining too! You just shine in a different way."

Avery Sunshine

Here's what I want from a book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence: I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer's heart. I want a novel so poetic that I do not have to turn to the standby anthologies of poetry to satisfy that itch for music, for perfection and economy of phrasing, for exactness of tone. Then, too, I want a book so filled with story and character that I read page after page without thinking of food or drink because a writer has possessed me, crazed with an unappeasable thirst to know what happens next.

Pat Conroy

Write what you want to read. So many people think they need to write a particular kind of book, or imitate a successful style, in order to be published. I've known people who felt they had to model their book on existing blockbusters, or write in a genre that's supposed to be "hot right now" in order to get agents and publishers interested. But if you're writing in a genre you don't like, or modeling yourself on a book you don't respect, it'll show through. You're your first, most important reader, so write the book that reader really wants to read.

Cassandra Clare

I write so that people will read what I write. I don't want to write a book that a thousand people read, or just privileged people read. I want to write a book whose emotional truth people can understand. For me, that's what it's about.

Ann Hood

Sure, kids want to read whatever is the hot book, and of course they want to read fantasy and any kind of speculative fiction, but they also like to read stories with kids that look just like them, that have the same problems as them. And I've noticed that what they particularly want to see is to see those characters prevail. So they don't want sanitized situations. They want stories to be raw, they want them to be gritty, but they also do want to see the hope at the end of the story.

Sofia Quintero

I definitely want to act and I want to sing. If those two fall through, I want to become a writer, probably, like a songwriter for other people, or a novel writer. I write a lot, and I read a lot. I like reading fiction.

Cassie Steele

If it's commercial fiction that you want to write, it's story, story, story. You've got to get a story where if you tell it to somebody in a paragraph, they'll go, "Tell me more." And then when you start to write it, they continue to want to read more. And if you don't, it won't work.

James Patterson

It's not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, "Read," but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, "Don't read, don't think, just write," and the result could be a mountain of drivel. If you're going to be a writer you'll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think, "There must be something else people do," you won't be able to quit.

Alice Munro

I can write any kind of novel I want, any time, and sell it, but there's not that many people watching it. Even a low-rated TV show is a couple million more people than read my books. You want to be read, in essence. If you're a television writer, you're a writer and you want people to read your stuff. You're still reaching a bigger audience, that way. That's a philosophical way to look at it.

George Pelecanos

We all want to write the kind of book that we want to read. If you put in the things that you are thinking about and create characters who feel like they could live - at least for me, that's the way I want to write.

Meg Wolitzer

I think the first thing - if you want to be a writer - the first thing you need to do is write. Which sounds like an obvious piece of advice. But so many people have this feeling they want to be a writer and they love to read but they don't actually write very much. The main part of being a writer, though, is being profoundly alone for hours on end, uninterrupted by email or friends or children or romantic partners and really sinking into the work and writing. That's how I write. That's how writing gets done.

Cheryl Strayed

I never thought I'd be a writer. I never thought I'd be able to read a book, let alone write one. So if books like this inspire kids to write, or even read a whole book, I think it's good.

Don Novello

I stopped reading William Faulkner because it's hard work. I want to read a good writer, but I also want to read something where the pages are going to move along. That's what I want. It doesn't have to be a thriller or a mystery. Just something where I get caught up in the story.

John Grisham

Basically, you know, write the book you want to read, be the band you want to hear, grow the food you want to eat, create the world you want to live in, and so on and so on. I think this translates well for how Christians should approach their present-day situation where the current goal of most everyone, Christian or not, seems to be to procure power.

Tripp York

I think I first encountered Ebola from the movie 'Outbreak.' Then there was the book 'The Hot Zone.' It's the type of thing you either read and say, 'Oh wow, that's terrifying,' or you read it and say, 'Oh wow, I want to do that.' I read it and said, 'Oh wow, I want do that.'