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To become a novelist, the most crucial thing one must do is read, read and read again - gradually you begin to think like a writer. Ideas are not found - they are shaped.

You have to live in order to have something to write about - you get caught up in moviemaking and celebrities and money, and it's very intoxicating, but it doesn't give you what you need as a writer. You have to do something else for that.

I cannot recall any moment of clarity about becoming a writer. I always liked to read. That's what did it.

Doing interesting things and then writing about them is the best way to become a good writer.

I've wanted to be a writer since I was a boy, though it seemed an unlikely outcome since I showed no real talent. But I persevered and eventually found my own row to hoe. Ignorance of other writers' work keeps me from discouragement and I am less well-read than the average bus driver.

I think you become a writer when you stop writing for yourself or your teachers and start thinking about readers.

Read the kinds of things you want to write; read the kinds of things you would never write. Learn something from every writer you read.

The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.

Write a story a great writer would write. Because part of becoming an artist is pushing through all the disbelief of those around you, deciding that you are a writer when you have no idea what a plot is or whether what you've written is any good, or anything.