Reading great authors improves your writing by making you desperately unhappy with it.
Jul 262021
Reading
The dead alive and busy.
—Vaughan
Jul 192021
There exists in all men a thirst for the hunt, for predator stalking prey inexorably until it is caught and torn to shreds, that only reading Jane Austen can slake.
Mar 022021
Quotation device, n. A man whose memory surpasses his wit; whose conversation consists largely or exclusively of other people’s words. Cf. citation device.
Feb 102021
Analogously to Benford’s Law, 90% of the annotations in a used book occur in the first twenty pages.
Jan 072021
It doesn’t matter much which books you burn.
Nov 132020
Censorship, under more competent rule, would indicate something worth reading.
Oct 072020
Great literature inspires us to read; bad but celebrated literature inspires us to write.
Sep 022020
The Victorians used to tell us fiction rots the mind when in fact it rots the soul.
Aug 102020
We read, and imagine we can write; and write, and imagine we can think.
Jun 172020
So many readers seem delighted to find their own thoughts in an author; didn’t they hope for something better?