A Quote by Toni Morrison

I think one of the reasons I'm so thrilled with writing is because it is an act of reading for me at the same time, which is why my revisions are so sustained.

Toni Morrison

Quote Topics

Act Because Me Reading Reasons Same Same Time Sustained Think Thrilled Time Which Why Writing

Quote Author

Toni Morrison
American - Novelist
February 18, 1931 - August 5, 2019

I have a hard time writing. Most writers have a hard time writing. I have a harder time than most because I'm lazier than most. [...] The other problem I have is fear of writing. The act of writing puts you in confrontation with yourself, which is why I think writers assiduously avoid writing. [...] Not writing is more of a psychological problem than a writing problem. All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. [...] It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. Especially when it goes on for years. It's much more relaxing actually to work.

Fran Lebowitz

There's a lot of reasons you can think of to say why you act, but I can only say that it just felt good. At the same time, it felt really painful. It's still troubling and stressful to me.

Skeet Ulrich

I'm not reading currently because I'm getting revisions of a novel. If I read while I'm writing I will unconsciously plagiarize and go to jail.

David Duchovny

What's so exciting and terrifying about the writing process is that it really is an act of exploration and discovery. With all of us, not just writers, there is a sort of knowledge of the other. We have a lot more in common than we realize, and I think writing is really a sustained act of empathy.

Andre Dubus

The act of writing... is the act of trying to understand why my opinion is what it is. And ultimately, I think that's the same experience the reader has when they pick up one of my books.

Jodi Picoult

I have many reasons why I think reading is really important. It provided for me a refuge, especially during difficult times. It provided me with the notion that I could find an ending that was different from what was happening to me at the time.

Amy Tan

Writing the past is never a neutral act. Writing always asks the past to justify itself, to give its reasons... provided we can live with the reasons. What we want is a narrative, not a log; a tale, not a trial. This is why most people write memoirs using the conventions not of history, but of fiction.

Andre Aciman

Being a librarian certainly helped me with my writing because it made me even more of a reader, and I was always an enthusiastic reader. Writing and reading seem to me to be different aspects of a single imaginative act.

Margaret Mahy

One of the reasons why I think people have gone from reading mainstream newspapers to the Internet is because they realize they're being lied to.

Robert Fisk

I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people who don't read can sometimes lack. I know it seems like a contradiction in terms; after all reading is such a solitary, internalizing act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day-to-day life. But reading, and particularly the reading of fiction, encourages us to view the world in new and challenging ways...It allows us to inhabit the consciousness of another which is a precursor to empathy, and empathy is, for me, one of the marks of a decent human being.

John Connolly

Because I work so much, people think that I have a team writing for me, but that's not why I chose to write music for films. I chose to write music because I like to write music. So every single note that comes out of my studio is written by me, and I wouldn't be able to do two movies at the same time.

Alexandre Desplat

The only time I felt I was different was when one of my friends said, 'I hate reading' and I stared at her like, 'What kind of an alien creature are you?!' Because it was so incomprehensible to me that someone could dislike reading! That really started my desire to help other children love reading and writing.

Adora Svitak

The attention span of children may be one of the main reasons why an immersion in on-screen reading is so engaging, and it may also be why digital reading may ultimately prove antithetical to the long-in-development, reflective nature of the expert reading brain as we know it.

Maryanne Wolf

A man I know who writes and aspires to be a novelist does very little reading, and he's not that successful. But I think it's because he's like the kid who wants to be a ballplayer and never goes to the ballpark or tries to hit a ball. So I'd say reading is the most important thing that I do, besides the actual writing. I'm always asking as I read, "How did the writer do this? Why do I suddenly have tears in my eyes? Why am I crying?"

Robert Cormier

'Writing' always means 'not writing' to me because I will do anything to put it off. I think this is mainly because writing anything down and then handing it over to a third party - especially in comedy - is such an exposing act that you naturally want to delay the process.