I was kind of an outsider growing up, and I preferred reading to being with other kids. When I was about seven, I started to write my own books. I never thought of myself as wanting to be a writer – I just was one. – Ann Hood
I grew up reading ‘2000 AD’ and the occasional Transformers and GI Joe comic, but when I could finance comics myself, I lasted only a little reading superheroes. – Ben Peek
We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before. – Craig Venter
I loved to read, still do, and it seemed that the writing was a result of the love of books and reading and libraries. – Adriana Trigiani
No matter how much time you spend reading books or following your intuition, you’re gonna screw it up. Fifty times. You can’t do parenting right. – Alan Arkin
Growing up, I never gave a thought to being a writer. All I ever wanted to be was a traveler and explorer. Science-fiction allowed me to go places that were otherwise inaccessible, which is why I started reading it. I was going to be a lawyer, but I got saved. – Alan Dean Foster
I’ve been reading ghost stories ever since I could read. I’m immensely curious about ghosts and UFOs and all that stuff, but I’m a very hard-headed person. – Barbara Mertz
I was reading about an age pill that has been developed which they claim will make you live longer. That is not for me. – Cilla Black
Imagination, it turns out, is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something from nothing, which means, in one sense, that none of it is true. Yet in the writing, and perhaps in the reading, some of a character’s actions or lines are truer than others. – Amy Waldman
The thing I noticed about Jack was when we did a reading of the script, just to warm up. – Amanda Peet
I think a lot of what the iPad app is going to be used for is just reading the best content on Quora. It really helps the whole system run because people who are writing answers can get this very wide distribution to a large audience of readers. – Adam D’Angelo
Computers allow us to squeeze the most out of everything, whether it’s Google looking up things, so I guess that tends to make us a little lazy about reading books and doing things the hard way to understand how those things work. – Buzz Aldrin
When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn’t worth reading. – Billy Collins
Just as we were finishing ‘Paul’s Boutique’ we got our own places, and I was going out to clubs a lot less. I got a bit more introverted and spent a lot more time on my own reading. I would just go down to the esoteric bookstore and wander around. – Adam Yauch
I loved reading when I was young. I was just completely taken by stories. And I remember taking that into English literature at school and taking that into Shakespeare and finding that opened up a whole world of self-expression to me that I didn’t have access to previously. – Chiwetel Ejiofor
What struck me first on reading the Ten Hoeve-Jacobson paper was how small the consequences of the radiation release from the Fukushima reactor accident are projected to be compared to the devastation wrought by the giant earthquake and tsunami. – Burton Richter
He has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the more refined art of skipping and skimming. – Arthur Balfour
I’m always reading several books at the same time, depending on how deeply engrossed in it I am, if it’s fiction and if it captures me. – Andie MacDowell
I love reading about the supernatural, and time-slip novels, and the mistress of both is Barbara Erskine. – Alison Weir
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ my first collection was of John Bunyan’s works in separate little volumes. – Benjamin Franklin
The reason I was angry all the time was that Gloria Steinem and all those people, without reading my work, were saying all these horrible things against me. – Camille Paglia
I’m aware families sit around the telly to watch ‘Vera’, which is making entertainment out of murder. But I don’t enjoy reading about people’s pain. I tend to put myself in that position, and it’s not somewhere I want to be. – Ann Cleeves
I kind of go in waves with reading. Sometimes I read all the time, and sometimes I can’t get settled enough to focus. – Conor Oberst
Stephen King in many respects is a wonderful writer. He has made a contribution. People in the future will be able to pick up Stephen King’s books and learn a lot about who we were by reading those books. – Anne Rice
The class has become over the years fairly large, running to three hundred or more, but I always insist upon reading all the student folklore collections myself. Although this is a tall order, I look forward to it because I learn so much from it. – Alan Dundes
I have always been fascinated by the human mind, conscious and unconscious – that is what writing and reading is about, too. The why of your life and the why of your choices and the what has happened that you know and the what that you don’t know is really riveting, and psychoanalysts share my wonder at how it all unfolds. – Anne Roiphe
I think as women we’ve always been very used to growing up reading and identifying with male protagonists, especially in fantasy. There’s a saying in publishing that girls will read about boys, but boys will only read about boys, and it’s important to give women strong heroines. – Cassandra Clare
I often feel that I have a split personality. I love more than anything to be in my study writing, but when it’s time to do a book tour, I love that extroverted part, too – talking to people, reading, traveling, going out into the world. – Ann Hood
