V is for Voracious

VORACIOUS

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” 

― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

Are you a voracious reader?

I've mentioned the importance of reading before.

But I'm gonna say it again.

Because to be a great writer, the most critical thing you need to do, after writing, is to read. You should read like you are starving, and books are the last meals left on the earth. You should read a variety of books. Fiction, yes, and nonfiction, but also within these categories, a wide spectrum, from genre to literary and everything in between. It may be most useful to read the type of books you want to write, however, it is also good to read the books you don't want to write. Sparingly. I'm not suggesting you waste precious reading time on junk. But it will help you discover why it is that you dislike them. And if you learn that, it is so much easier to avoid doing the same thing in your own writing.

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.” 
― William Faulkner


“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” 
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“We live for books.” 
― Umberto Eco

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” 
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” 
― Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life

“People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.” 
― Saul Bellow

“We read to know we're not alone.” 
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.” 
― James Baldwin

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” 
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” 
― Ray Bradbury

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” 
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice