Women Writers Reading

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"Nothing shows up the difference between the things said or read, so much as the daily experience of it."

Vita Sackwille-West (British, 1892-1962)

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“I wanted to read immediately. The only fear was that of books coming to an end.” 

Eudora Welty (American, 1909-2001)

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“I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life.” 

Mary Oliver (American, 1935-)

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“Only my books anoint me,  and a few friends,  those who reach into my veins.” 

Anne Sexton (American, 1928-1974)

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"We never went out without a book; and, so long as my memory reaches, my mother always read out loud while walking, interrupting herself only to enlarge upon the subject, to tell stories, and discuss theories."

Vernon Lee (British, 1856-1935)

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"I am deep in Senancour, and for miscellaneous reading I have been getting through Horace's Epistles and dawdling a good deal over Shakespeare. My feeling as to him gets stronger and stronger, that he was, strictly speaking, a great poet, but not a great dramatist!"

Mrs Humphry Ward (British, 1851-1920)

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“I learned a lot, when I was a child, from novels and stories, even fairytales have some point to them--the good ones. The thing that impressed me most forcibly was this: the villains went to work with their brains and always accomplished something ... "A good villain. That's what we need!" I said to myself. "Why don't they write about them? Aren't there ever any." I never found any in all my beloved story books, or in real life. And gradually, I made up my mind to be one.” 

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (American, 1860-1935)

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“I am simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them.” 

Lucy Maud Montgomery (Canadian 1874-1942)

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“At Chicago I read again 'Philip Van Artevelde,' and certain passages in it will always be in my mind associated with the deep sound of the lake, as heard in the night. I used to read a short time at night, and then open the blind to look out. The moon would be full upon the lake, and the calm breath, pure light, and the deep voice, harmonized well with the thought of the Flemish hero.” 

Margaret Fuller (American 1810-1850)

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“Have you ever seen a child sitting on its mother’s knee listening to fairy stories? As long as the child is told of cruel giants and of the terrible suffering of beautiful princesses, it holds its head up and its eyes open; but if the mother begins to speak of happiness and sunshine, the little one closes its eyes and falls asleep with its head against her breast. . . . I am a child like that, too. Others may like stories of flowers and sunshine; but I choose the dark nights and sad destinies.” 

Selma Lagerlöf (Swedish 1858-1940)

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“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.” 

Edith Sitwell (British 1887-1964)

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"My first homelands have been books."

Marguerite Yourcenar (Belgian-French 1903-1987)

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"I have adopted Stendhal. Every night I read him now & first thing in the morning."

Katherine Mansfield (New Zealander-British, 1888-1923)

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“The true felicity of a lover of books is the luxurious turning of page by page, the surrender, not meanly abject, but deliberate and cautious, with your wits about you, as you deliver yourself into the keeping of the book. This I call reading.” 

Edith Wharton (American, 1862-1937)

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“When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values.”

Simone de Beauvoir (French, 1908-1986)

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“I shall keep my book on the table here, and read a little every morning as soon as I wake, for I know it will do me good, and help me through the day.” 

Louisa May Alcott (American, 1832-1888)

(Photo credit: Bettmann/Corbis)

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“When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.” 

Virginia Woolf (British, 1882-1941)