Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing:
It is a general observation that people write as they read. As a
rule, careful writers are careful readers and vice versa. A careful
writer wants to be read carefully. He cannot know what it means to
be read carefully but by having done careful reading himself.
Reading precedes writing. We read before we write. We learn to
write by reading. A man learns to write well by reading well good
books, by reading most carefully books which are most carefully
written. (Quoted from Edwin Curley, Behind the Geometrical Method:
A Reading of Spinoza's Ethics, Princeton University Press, 1988,
p. ii.)
"We learn to write by reading." This is why reading good books is
essential to becoming a good writer.