"By fostering love for mere amusement, the reading of fiction creates a distaste for life's practical duties. Through its exciting, intoxicating power it is not infrequently a cause of both mental and physical disease. Many a miserable, neglected home, many a lifelong invalid, many an inmate of the insane asylum, has become such through the habit of novel reading. MH 446.1"
"He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding."
Proverbs 12:11 contrasts diligence in practical work with following vanity, leading to a lack of understanding. EGW connects novel reading with neglecting practical duties and leading to negative consequences. The connection is that both passages contrast a beneficial activity with a detrimental one.
"false views of life and beget and foster a desire for the unreal. MH 446.3"
"And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."
Both passages discuss turning away from truth and embracing falsehoods or 'fables' and 'unreal' things. EGW's statement is a more concise expression of the same idea presented in 2 Timothy 4:4.