Quotes About Author

there is no better way to learn how to write than by writing a novel.

Fiction writing starts off by requiring the towering arrogance that enables one to sit down at the typewriter in the belief that someone somewhere will actually be eager to read the productions of our own private imaginations. But that arrogance must be buffered by the humility that leads us to learn our craft and strive to make our work comprehensible and inviting and accessible to the reader.

A treat indeed, to read Raymond Chandler for the first time. I almost envied the man

If you are trying to write realistic fiction and you people it extensively with overdrawn characters, you're working against yourself. You can occasionally get away with filling books and stories with grotesques, but unless your name's Carson McCullers it gets tricky. A less obvious form of caricature consists of giving an otherwise ordinary character a trait or attribute or mannerism on which the reader may focus his attention.

And I gather they did." "What is it Mehitabel always says? In archy and mehitabel? 'There's life in the old dame yet.' Ã¢â'¬Â "And she said that?" "What she said, word for word, was 'So I took him into the bedroom and fucked his brains out.

Milland went on to other things, but his picture graced the cover of Markham: The Case of the Pornographic Photos, which is a notably clunky title and subtitle.

The book was How to Write a Novel, by Manuel Komroff; a professor at Columbia University, he was a prolific writer of fiction and nonfiction. His book, published in 1950, is available from used booksellers for between $10 and $25.

the gun that had done me the kindness of jamming or misfiring, had skidded halfway across the room, and Vince bent over and reached for it, than thought better of it and used his foot instead.

Another title that could be questioned is Lingo Dan (1903) by Percival Pollard.

type my work and get it copied before delivering the original to my agent. (Not too many years before that I'd have made a carbon copy. Do you remember carbon paper? Does anybody?)

And he'll beat you, beat you, beat you And he'll beat you all to pap And he'll eat you, eat you, eat you Every morsel snap snap snap! English Lullaby

I try to avoid eating endangered species, let alone mythical ones. You

A mind may be a terrible thing to waste, but it's an even worse thing to have to listen to.

The House at Sugar Beach, New York Times reporter Helene Cooper's memoir of her girlhood as a member of the Liberian upper crust.

that's where Fredric Brown spent his later years." "Fredric Brown? Our Fredric Brown?" "We were on the bus together." "You and Fredric Brown." "Right." "On a bus in Tucson." "When he was trying to work out a plot," I said, "he would ride buses all night, and thoughts would come to him." "I'll bet they would. 'Why am I up so late? What am I doing on this broken-down rattletrap?

I'd read Skid Row U.S.A., by Sara Harris

The book probably owes a little to The Tooth and the Nail, by Bill S. Ballinger, a fine writer who's pretty much forgotten these

When Terry Zobeck was working away at my bibliography, A Trawl Among the Shelves, I kept recalling books and stories and articles of mine that had slipped my mind, and reporting what I could recall; Terry, apparently indefatigable, would scour the internet until he came up with a copy of the new discovery, add it to his collection, and write it up for the bibliography.

Brad Steiger's recently published book, Sex and the Supernatural. (Perhaps Steiger and Tracy can someday collaborate on Sex and the Supernatural Stewardess, for that matter.)

all the topics embraced in the title of the Kronhausens' fine book Pornography and the Law.

And various bibliographic sources agree that "Like a Thief in the Night" appeared in the May 1983 edition of Cosmopolitan. But I've never been able to confirm this. I don't think it ever appeared in a magazine.

was now living on Haven Avenue, in Washington Heights

She said it casually, but it was like a casual stroke with a shiv. (p.140)

Beacon's leading light, one Orrie Hitt. I