Jean M. Auel Quotations

From the beginning, the series has been story driven - I began with a story idea - but research feeds it.

Aside from sales, the letters from readers have been primarily positive.

Again Creb grunted. It was the usual noncommittal comment used by men when responding to a woman. It carried only enough meaning to indicate the woman had been understood, without acknowledging too much significance in what she said.

Of the two, I would think of my work as closer to Science Fiction than Fantasy.

I have heard Science Fiction and Fantasy referred to as the fiction of ideas, and I like that definition, but it's the mainstream public that chooses my books for the most part.

I had tears coming out of my eyes. And it was the characters that got me there.

My fiction is reviewed by the mainstream press, by science fiction periodicals, romance magazines, small press publications and various other journals, including some usually devoted to archaeological and other science material.

I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.

I can't tell you any more than any other writer can tell you why they write, and I don't know what my influences are.

The idea led me into the research, which continues to give me more ideas for the story.

Science Fiction is not just about the future of space ships travelling to other planets, it is fiction based on science and I am using science as my basis for my fiction, but it's the science of prehistory - palaeontology and archaeology - rather than astronomy or physics.

No, my publisher has always done the marketing.

You weren't being punished. You were waiting for me.

She loved him, more than she could ever find words for, but this love he felt for her was not quite the same. It wasn't so much stronger, as more demanding, more insistent. As though he feared he would lose that which he had finally won.

Ayla, I looked for you all my life and didn't know I was looking. You are everything I ever wanted, everything I ever dreamed of in a woman, and more. You are a fascinating enigma, a paradox. You are totally honest, open; you hide nothing: yet you are the most mysterious woman I've ever met.

But when did you see her, talk to me? When did you see her go into the cave? Why did you threaten to strike a spirit? You still don't understand, do you? You acknowledged her, Broud, she has beaten you. You did everything you could to her, you even cursed her. She's dead, and still she won. She was a woman, and she had more courage than you, Broud, more determination, more self-control. She was more man than you are. Ayla should have been the son of my mate.

The other mammoths were as protective of the dying as they were of newborns, and they gathered around tying to make the fallen one get up. When all was over, they buried the dead ancestor under piles of dirt, grass, leaves, or snow. Mammoths were even known to bury other dead animals, including humans.

When you are alone, you have all the time in the world to practice whistling like a bird. When there is no one in the world you can turn to, a horse or .even a lion may give you companionship. When you don't know if there is anyone in the world like you, you seek contact with something living however you can

I really fell in love with Africa.

I'm just writing a story that I want to read.

Each book has been different and has been challenging in its own way to write.

There was a time when the young of many clans joined together to make new clans.

Illness and accidents were mysterious manifestations of the war of the spirits, fought on the battleground of the body.

Art was as much in the activity as in the results. Works of art were not just the finished product, but the thought, the action, the process that created them.

I probably read 100 times more than I write, but that way when I move my characters through it, I know.

Though my books are written from a historical perspective, I have goon so far back that I am in the realm of prehistorical speculation rather than simple historical fact to weave my stories around.

They stared at each other, wanting each other, drawn to each other, but their silent shout of love went unheard in the roar of misunderstanding, and the clatter of culturally ingrained beliefs.

It took some time to gather the research and develop it into the storyline, and to finally finish an origin myth poem that I had been working on for twenty years.

I have been a reader of Science Fiction and Fantasy for a long time, since I was 11 or 12 I think, so I understand it and I'm not at all surprised that readers of the genre might enjoy my books.

I don't write for publishers, certainly not for critics, and not for readers, But I am delighted that so many people have found my books enjoyable and want to continue to read them.

From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me.

I had an idea for a story about a young woman who was living with people who were different, not just superficially different - such as hair colour, or eye colour, or skin colour - but different in some significant way.

And that's how I start myself. I usually go back a couple of pages, maybe to the beginning of the chapter, and I start reading. And as I'm reading, I'm tweaking - putting in a different word, changing the syntax, putting that clause over there, you know that sort of thing.

If you want to fall in love, you can't hold everything in. You have to open up, take that risk. You'll be hurt sometimes, but if you don't, you'll never be happy. The one you find may not be the kind of woman you expected to fall in love with, but it wont matter, you'll love her for exactly what she is.

I could write historical fiction, or science fiction, or a mystery but since I find it fascinating to research the clues of some little know period and develop a story based on that, I will probably continue to do it.

Life is neither static nor unchanging. With no individuality, there can be no change, no adaptation and, in an inherently changing world, any species unable to adapt is also doomed.

I think of my books as mainstream and that's were most people who read them look for them in book stores.

She lifted the drooping muzzle with both hands...It was a special embrace saved for special occasions.

Life sometimes gets in the way of writing.

You learn to write by writing, and by reading and thinking about how writers have created their characters and invented their stories. If you are not a reader, don't even think about being a writer.

I can move my characters through it easily, because I understand the background; I've really studied it.