This is a hard question for me to answer, but if I had to pick one author that I hold above all others, it would probably be Carl Sagan.
He explains science and the universe in such a poetic and magnificent way. His writing prowess is potent enough to inspire even the laziest and indifferent of people to question themselves, their universe, and their culture. After him, I'm really not sure. Perhaps Ralph Waldo Emerson? I haven't read any of his stuff in quite a while though.
Jack Kerouac
Ayn Rand
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Hemingway maybe.
There's others.
Philip K dick is awesome.
Jules verne strictly for the mysterious island. I love that book to death.
Vonnegut, of courses.
Unless I want to space out. Then I read stephen king compulsively.
He's not graceful, but he spins a good yarn.
I'm mainly talking about the dark tower of course.
I dunno, authors are really hard for me to pick favorites of. I guess right now I could say J.D. Salinger, Hemingway, and Chuck Palahniuk.
I read a lot of different stuff from different author, but the only authors I follow directly are Haruki Murakami and Toni Morrison.
George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, Aldous Huxley.
I'm saying Huxley too.
Mostly for The Doors of Perception.
Joseph Heller, Hunter S. Thompson, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald
My favorites are probably H.P. Lovecraft and Thomas Pynchon... the former for his stories and perfectly macabre style, and Pynchon because there is just no author like him.
Of the classics, F. Scott Fitzgerald is probably my favorite. The way he puts sentences together is something I dream of doing.
I guess you could say Chuck Palahniuk. I don't read that much and most of the authors I read only have two or so books or suck so I don't investigate their books too much.
Ayn Rand and George Orwell... I also want to start reading some more William Golding because I really liked Lord of the Flies