. . . from litlove’s Reading Room

List some of your favourite words:

Murmur, discombobulated, crepuscular, singularity, loquacious … (more to come)

What’s your favourite maxim or proverb?

When the gods want to punish us they answer our prayers.

What’s your favourite quotation?

“What is the use of a large vocabulary of words if one has only a small range of ideas?” Robertson Davies

What’s your favourite first line of a novel?

“I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice – not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.” – John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

Give an example of a piece of description that’s really pleased you in your reading lately:

[have to get back on this one – nothing springs to mind at the moment]

Which five writers do you particularly admire for their use of language?

Vladamir Nabokov, Robertson Davies, Margaret Atwood, Dorothy Parker, Martin Amis

And are there writers whose style you really dislike?

Dan Brown, John Grisham, Ernest Hemingway

What’s the key to really fine writing, in your opinion?

Believable dialogue, intelligent humour, the ability to teach without preaching, creating empathy for a book’s characters (whether you like them or not)…

Feel free to tag yourselves… 🙂

Please link back here (and to litlove’s) so we can all read your replies,
or just leave a comment here with your answers if you prefer.