Books Quotations | Page 2

There's a bunch of Stephen King books I love. 'Salem's Lot' was always one of my favourites. 'It.' 'Needful Things.' Moving away from King, and 'Silence of the Lambs' is always a good choice.

I've had a lot of books rejected in my time. My first novel, which didn't get published, was, with hindsight, crashingly dull.

I read all of the books by Tolkien, including 'The Hobbit,' when I was in my twenties, and his deep love of nature and all things green resonates deeply with me.

I rewrite my books many times before submitting them, and after my editor takes a look I wind up rewriting some more! It's a good thing I learned at an early age to keep on trying. Stick to it, and eventually you'll get there.

I'm a novelist, editor, short story writer. I also teach, and I freelance sometimes as an arts consultant. Most of my books have been published by Warner Books, now known as Grand Central Books.

I've been on this kick reading about the beginning of forensic science: autopsies, fingerprinting, psychological profiling. I've been reading a lot of books about forensic anthropology.

Thanks to social media like Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads, I can easily reach out to so many people. Being a writer gives me the added bonus of a targeted audience: readers, who enjoy targeted 'prizes' for participation in fundraisers - books and other neat promo items.

I think it's a fallacy to say that a good book sells itself. It doesn't happen. I'm a voracious reader and I can give you a long list of books which should have been best sellers but they aren't. How can you buy a book if you haven't heard of it?

After so many books and so many years of writing, I have a good idea of my strengths and weaknesses. I love the process of writing and, if I allowed myself, I would write far too much every day. One weakness which I've struggled to overcome is my tendency to having my characters ruminate for pages.

For my books of nonfiction I write about subjects I find fascinating. I've been a Yankees and a Lou Gehrig fan for decades, so I wrote 'Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man.' It's more the story of his great courage than of his baseball playing. Children face all sorts of challenges, and it's my hope that some will be inspired by the courage of Lou Gehrig.

Well I guess the plan was to write poetry and publish books and make a living from writing poetry. That was a pretty ambitious plan I guess.

Literary men now routinely tell their readers about their divorces. One literary man who reviews books wrote, in reviewing a study of Ruskin, that he had never read a book by Ruskin but that the study confirmed him in his belief that he didn't want to read a book by Ruskin. This man very often writes about his family life.

When I know the data that's being shared and I'm asked explicitly for my consent, I want some sites to understand my habits. It helps them suggest books for me to read or movies for my family to watch or friends for us to connect with.

There's a series of children's books called A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is like an incredibly dark version of Roald Dahl. I hope to start directing it.

I love real books, paper books, but I also love buying online, and I think that people are more willing to take a chance to read something if it's cheaper - sometimes books on the Kindle are $6. A hardback book is $25. For $25, it better be a really great book. Or you're going to be mad.

In my day, MI6 - which I called the Circus in the books - stank of wartime nostalgia. People were defined by secret cachet: one man did something absolutely extraordinary in Norway; another was the darling of the French Resistance. We didn't even show passes to go in and out of the building.

'Winnie The Witch' transgresses all cultural boundaries. Amusingly, there have been attempts to deconstruct the meaning of the books - that Winnie represents society and Wilbur the disabled - but I think it's just a great story.

I believed God had wired me as a writer for a purpose, and I was squandering that purpose. I finally repented of doing things my way and told God that, in the future, I would only write books that glorified Him. That meant I had to buy back some of my contracts.

Books are such quiet things - created in silence, read in silence - yet publishing a book has become a very noisy business. I've been noisy, too. I felt like I had to be in order to connect with my readers.

If you want, you can have a coffin made out of cardboard or wicker or papier mache. There's one like a seed pod, or you could buy one that doubles as both a bookcase and a coffin. During your life, you stand it in your living room, and then after you die, the books are taken out and your body put in their place and the whole thing buried.

I began illustrating children's books because of a growing disillusionment with the sort of work I was doing in the advertising industry. Book publishing offered me the chance to be far more creative.

Some say it is the elements of hope and wonder in children's books that make them special. But there are many dark young adult novels these days. Adults loved Harry Potter, though it was written for the young. In the end, it is probably up to the reader of any age to decide if this book is for him or her.

As a senior editor at Tor Books and the manager of our science fiction and fantasy line, I rarely blog to promote specific projects I'm involved with, for reasons that probably don't need a lot of explanation.

I love character and voice, and my favourite books have been the ones in which I've become completely absorbed.

I used to say, read as much as you can. Now I say, read the best that you can, the stories that resonate with you, the books that are important to you. Try to read, not only as a reader, but also as a writer, to deconstruct how the author is telling his or her story.

Ramona was originally an accidental character I added to the Henry Huggins books because I noticed that none of the characters had siblings. I added Ramona as Beazus' pestering little sister.

In the 1970s and early '80s, Shanghai was quiet, cautious, a ghost of a once-great city - and yet physically, little was changed from its glittering heyday. When visiting, I enjoyed reading books on local history and used my time off to scope out the former haunts of gangsters and jazzmen.

I got into writing because books and stories were always a big part of my life. I loved listening to them and then reading them, and I loved making them up.

I don't want to write formula. I don't want to crank these books out like sausages. Every book is different, which takes a hell of a lot of ingenuity on my part.

I have a Facebook page and a website. Beyond that, I'm actually a very private person. I'd rather see the focus on the books than on me.

I am interested in writing how women really feel, how they really think, and how they respond to men. I don't want men reading my books because they might find out too much.

A couple of weeks after that, Zebra Books phoned with an offer, and I accepted.

We probably put about four or five comic books out a year and probably about two or three art books and various trade paperbacks - maybe four or five of those a year - and that's what we do now.

I owe a great debt to motor-racing, and the first place I went to in Europe when I was 20 was Italy, and I was extremely influenced by it in books until I got there.

I like to read books and be alone; I'm not social butterfly person. I'm sorry.

Remember that just because major publishing is having trouble, that doesn't mean people have stopped reading books. Printed books won't go away, but ebooks won't go away, either.

All I'm asking for is the law that's been on the books for the last 33 years, no public funding for abortion. We are both saying the same thing, pro-life, pro-choice. Let's find the language that works for both of us so we can pass health care.

I created 'Captain Underpants' when I was in the second grade. I was constantly getting in trouble for being the class clown, so my teacher sent me out into the hallway to punish me. It was there in the hall that I began drawing 'Captain Underpants'. Soon I was making my own comic books about him.

Force me to choose my best book, and I always come back to 'Gorilla.' It was the first time I felt I understood what picture books could do.

The books I used to love as a kid, I used to read football books - and by that I mean soccer books - stories about boys in school who started to play football and then became the captain. I'd read them cover to cover. I just got lost in them.

In doing the screenplay for 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' the most important thing for me was to constantly go back to wherever the opposition would argue. So I had to keep reading all the books and articles about why McCarthy is such a good guy.

When I read James Joyce, I'm not really interested in the Dublin of 1904. I'm interested in being in the presence of a voice and a sensibility underpinned by an authenticity which, I think, if you're a good writer, you can extract from the specific details of your own time. I think most writers do hope that their books will be read in ten years.

I have been reading crime books ever since I was a child, but I had never tried to write one.

My first draft is always way too long; my books start out with delusions of 'War and Peace' - and must be gently disabused. My editor is brilliant at taking me to the point where I do all the necessary cutting on my own. I like to say she's a midwife rather than a surgeon.

I loved reading when I grew up but did feel totally invisible because I couldn't see myself and my life reflected in the books I was reading.

Every now and then, someone will tell me that one of my books has made them laugh out loud. I never believe them because: a.) my books don't make me laugh out loud; and b.) sometimes I have said this to a writer, when really what I meant was, 'Your book made me smile appreciatively.'

Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal, or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction, but often it's really just about the money, the perceived prestige.

I have thought you could not give everything to your books and also to your children, so for a long time, I thought if I had a child or a family, I'd think, 'How would I support them?' because basically I would stop writing.

The problem with people who live in a world of speeches and books and theories is they don't know how to fix things in the real world when they go wrong. They feign ignorance, blame others, and make another eloquent speech.

I had no idea I'd end up writing four books when I completed 'Mortal Engines.' I didn't even think it would find a publisher.

The books are funny and sad, and that's what people respond to.

Making books is a very specific kind of activity. It's not really a collection of your best pictures - although it is - but it's also a way of presenting your work so that it's not repetitive, so that it flows, and so that it makes sense in a book.

I like writing characters that seem different from one another. So if you were to hypothetically look at a bunch of lines from books I've written, just out of context, hopefully you would be able to determine who said what. That's the goal, anyway. I try to strongly differentiate through dialogue.

I've written books as acts of discovery: things I need to know and that I need to touch. And it's very dangerous work to deal with the most toxic internal elements... I feel like Madame Curie at my computer. I feel like I should be hemorrhaging from my eyes and ears.

I wrote 'Airborn' after completing three books about bats. I loved my bats, but what a treat it was to write about humans again. They could eat food other than midges and mosquitoes, they wore clothing, they slept in beds - all this struck me as wonderfully novel.

I like to read really good books - anything that's really great, whether it's fiction, non-fiction, how-to, or whatever.

But, you know, I just did a big trip in the spring to Vietnam and Cambodia and Thailand, and that's when I bought a Kindle. I have like 15 books on this one little gizmo. But when I came home, the first night I picked up the book that was on my nightstand and I went right back to that.

If you look on Amazon - if you do a search for personal finance, there are literally 20,000 books written on personal finance, and there's no real reason for it. I mean, personal finance is pretty simple.

My process for determining which eras I'd write about was to just read history books that gave a really broad overview of Chinese history. And when I came across a historical figure or a historical incident that was especially interesting to me, ideas for characters and stories would surface.

I grew up in a house full of books and parents who read, which led to me to reading from a very young age. And reading seemed to naturally progress to writing.

When the Internet came along, at first it was just a medium for moving text around - books first, then pictures, finally video. Each time the bandwidth expanded, so did the capabilities of the medium, and each time it happened, the Internet cannibalized preexisting formats. And each time, those formats had to adapt. Or die.

The shelves of many evangelicals are full of books that point out the flaws in evolution, discuss it only as a theory, and almost imply that there's a conspiracy here to avoid the fact that evolution is actually flawed. All of those books, unfortunately, are based upon conclusions that no reasonable biologist would now accept.

When my father died in Greece, leaving my mother strapped, a cheque arrived next day from my Greek publishers who'd just bought two of my books for pounds 500.

As a writer, you should care about reluctant readers. You want these kids to feel like books are amazing and cool and that they're an escape.

Save the Children is an awesome charity that has helped more than 125 million children around the world, providing everything from school books to food to blankets and shelter.

I don't know if foreigners will take to my novels or not. It may be that my books appeal only to a particular gender or age group rather than convey a more universal appeal.

Writing blurbs for books means you have to read the book, and it cuts into the business of bookselling. So every time I get a blurb from a bookseller, I try to write a thank you note.

Early in my publishing career, someone told me I'd need to have five books in print before I could quit my job as a journalist. Turns out it was closer to 10 books. It also turns out that while it's great to see my titles on bookstore shelves, my best customers are schools and libraries.

What's gratifying is that it's my books that are being read and reread until they're battered over the years. I love that.

Superman has evolved continually in the comic books over the course of 75 years. He couldn't even fly for years in the original comic books. Kryptonite wasn't added until the '60s. All sorts of things like this. If a character is going to remain vital, he does have to change with the times.

I've been reading Tanith Lee since I was a teenager, beginning with 'The Birthgrave' and 'The Storm Lord.' Only recently did I discover, to my delight, how many more of her books I've yet to read.

In junior high school, I learned that I could be good at school. I remember liking the freedom to choose classes and the pleasure of learning and doing well. My perseverance and love of reading had somehow allowed me to overcome many disadvantages of dyslexia, and I read a lot of books for pleasure.

I like working in children's books because it gives rise to such a variety of jobs. One month it may be a picture book, the next a retelling, the next a play, a short story or the start of the next novel.

There are a million great books out there if you just go to Google. There's a lot to pull apart. A lot of crazy, unbelievable stuff that's all completely true. I get into little obsessions, and I read everything I can find on one thing, and then I move onto another.

Like many readers, I am continually in search of books that allow me to lose myself in an entirely unique universe.

November is Jewish book month, so Jewish Community Centers all around the country have book fairs where they invite authors and sell books in advance of the holidays.

Conservatives should insist that defense spending be examined with the same seriousness that we demand in examining the books of those government agencies that spend taxpayer money in the name of welfare, the environment, or education.

I write because I have an innate need to. I write because I can't do normal work. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it.

There's always an anxiety about playing literary characters because one of the great joys of reading books is that you can create your own vision of things.

I have read only the first 'Harry Potter' book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them.

You can find dozens of books about people taking the Trans-Siberian Railroad. I knew I had to do something different to cross Siberia. To drive and to talk with people along the way, that was how I wrote my book 'Great Plains'. I drove and camped in Siberia, but did not have a real program.

I want to position my books as premium-priced versions on the reasonably-priced scale, if that makes sense, to find a sweet spot between the high-end of what my brand can support and the low end that results in impulse purchases and maximum sales volume.

There is no question that creative intelligence comes not through learning things you find in books or histories that have already been written, but by focusing on and giving value to experience as it happens.

I wrote one book, signed with a good agent, and sat back and waited for the phone to ring. I was sure that the great news would come at any moment. Four books later, I finally got that call.

Many adults that I have met in my time believed that picture books are 'babyish'. I hope I have changed minds on this, as I set out to do.

I did an audiobook for 'Rough Crossings,' which I thought was one of the best books I had published. But it was an absolute embarrassment to read it. All these horrible mucked-up bits of syntax, over-the-top adjectives. I found myself editing it while reading. Alert listeners will notice the difference.

A lot of the books that I grew up reading were pretty brutal, like the 'Redwall' books.

Sometimes, my books start with a scene I see in my mind, such as a woman in a wedding dress running away from her wedding like in 'Embers of Love.' Sometimes, a book can start with a character.

I was a latecomer to romance, although I did read gothics. My father used to work for the 'Fort Worth Star-Telegram,' and their book reviewer, author Leonard Sanders, would pass on the gothics for my dad to give to me since Leonard didn't review gothics. I gobbled up books by Mary Stewart, Madeleine Brent, Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney.

Schools still operate as if all knowledge is contained in books, and as if the salient points in books must be stored in each human brain - to be used when needed. The political and financial powers controlling schools decide what these salient points are.

With a young-adult series, you need to get a lot of books out on the market quickly. Teenagers aren't going to wait years and years for the next book.

Inspiration comes from everywhere. From life, observing people, etc. From movies and books you love. From research.

Laughter is healing and helpful and fun, and I see my role as an entertainer, and I want readers to leave my books smiling.

Often, when people ask me what I read as a young girl, I lie. Or, I should say, I lie by omission. I tell them about my brilliant fourth-grade teacher, Miss Artis, who assigned us 'Johnny Tremain' and 'Where the Red Fern Grows' and 'Tuck Everlasting,' all books that made an impression on me. And people nod in approval.

Most of the great books on prayer are written by 'experts' - monks, missionaries, mystics, saints. I've read scores of them, and mainly they make me feel guilty.

Producing words isn't a problem for me. And I usually write two books at a time. When one horse gets winded, you jump on the other.

Through the eight books in 'The Treasure Chest' series, readers will meet twins Maisie and Felix and learn the secrets and rules of time travel, where they will encounter some of these famous and forgotten people. In Book 1, Clara Barton, then Alexander Hamilton, Pearl Buck, Harry Houdini, and on and on.

Because books are written by individuals, it has often made knowledge seem like the product of individuals, even though everybody has always understood that individuals are working within the social network.

I discovered Deborah Ellis's books in the school library after my head teacher encouraged me to go beyond the school curriculum and look for books I might enjoy.

I like to write books that I would have liked as a child, that would have got me thinking and imagining beyond the words on the page. In a way, my audience is always how I remember myself as a child.