Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy – which many believe goes hand in hand with it – will be dead as well.

I’ve done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.

After you finish a book, you know, you’re dead. But no one knows you’re dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.

I can’t consciously explain how people feel after reading my books. All is too personal.

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

I’m tall, fat, rather bald, red-faced, double-chinned, black-haired, have a deep voice, and wear glasses for reading.

El Salvador is a democracy so it’s not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans… I have heard a single voice.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

I don’t read books much.

By reading, you learn through others‘ experiences, generally, a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

If you play an instrument, it makes you a better singer. The more you play, the better you sing, the more you sing, the better you play.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

I never experiment with anything in my books. Experimentation means you don’t know what you’re doing.

Money is an unavoidable consequence, but it isn’t the reason I write; if it was, I wouldn’t have written any of the YA books, because advances in that field are small compared to what I’d got now for an ‚adult‘ DW.

I’ve just finished my 20th book this past year and I’m working on my 21st book about the Middle East right now that I’ll finish this year. And I get up early in the morning and when I get tired of the computer and tired of doing research, I walk 20 steps out to my woodshop and I either build furniture or paint paintings. I’m an artist too.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

Charlotte Bronte was writing about sex. I supposed Jane Austen was, too. Where do you get a hero like Darcy unless you are writing about sex?

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn’t think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Volleyball, I could be pretty good. After a few practices I could be that striker, or whatever they call it.

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset – tears are words waiting to be written.

All the blood is drained out of democracy – it dies – when only half the population votes.

You don’t read in your own field. You read in that field when you’re young, so that you can learn.

If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure – the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?

If it’s all instruction, you get annoyed with it and bored, and you stop reading. If it’s all entertainment, you read it quite quickly, your heart going pitty-pat, pitty-pat. But when you finish, that’s it. You’re not going to think about it much afterward, apart from the odd nightmare. You’re not going to read that book again.

The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood – rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky – they all turn out in one day.

I don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it.

Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we – we own this country. We – we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

I always say the strength of democracy lies in criticism. If there is no criticism, that means there is no democracy. And if you want to grow, you must invite criticism. And I want to grow; I want to invite criticism.

To be a monk is to have time to practice for your transformation and healing. And after that to help with the transformation and healing of other people.

I can have people around a lot more because I’m not always chasing them away so I can work on my novel. My non-novel, I mean.

I never expected any sort of success with ‚Mockingbird’… I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.

Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.

I’ve been reading tabloids since I was nine. I love a good story.

Dancing in high heels is kind of tough. I learn the dances without the heels, and then we add them. We just practice, and I get used to it. My feet hurt really badly at the end of the shows, but it’s fun. While it’s happening it’s fun. I feel tall.

People who read the tabloids deserve to be lied to.

The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited ‚first chapters‘. I have indeed written many.

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.

I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.

Some artists just ruin their voices because they don’t know any better.

When you pick up a book, everyone knows it’s imaginary. You don’t have to pretend it’s not a book. We don’t have to pretend that people don’t write books. That omniscient third-person narration isn’t the only way to do it. Once you’re writing in the first person, then the narrator is a writer.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

I don’t think I’ve ever read poetry, ever. I’m not really book-smart.

If I read a book that impresses me, I have to take myself firmly by the hand, before I mix with other people; otherwise they would think my mind rather queer.

Read a record number of books in a given month. If you’re focused on intellectual growth, train yourself to study harder and longer than ever before.

You can’t die with an unfinished book.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.