Quotes About Authorship

I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.

I haven't the faintest idea what my royalties are. I haven't the faintest idea how many copies of books sold, or how many books that I've written. I could look these things up; I have no interest in them. I don't know how much money I have. There are a lot of things I just don't care about.

Matt Weiner is an amazing writer. He's one of the best, greatest writers that's ever written for television - or just written.

I have heard of novels started in the middle, at the end, written in patches to be joined together later, but I have never felt the slightest desire to do this.

It's been a while since I've written a novel aimed at the adult market, but I never sit down and say to myself, 'Okay, now I'm going to write something for us old folks.' I get gripped by an idea, and I go where the idea takes me.

I've always been a pretty hard worker. That's how I've written over a hundred books.

Lots of people want to have written; they don't want to write. In other words, they want to see their name on the front cover of a book and their grinning picture on the back. But this is what comes at the end of a job, not at the beginning.

I have written 20 books, and each one is like having a baby. Writing is not easy; some people want to write books but just can't put a story together. I can put together a story that interests both me and my readers.

Another thing that's quite different in writing a book as a practicing newspaperman is that if you look at what you've written the next morning and you think you didn't get it quite right, you can fix it.

'Presumed Innocent' was written over a six to seven year period with intervals in between where I was figuring out the end of the book and writing other stuff... My life as a writer was carried on against the odds. I had written four unpublished novels by then... as a writer of fiction, I hadn't gotten very far. I just wanted to do it.

My first, 'Room on the Roof,' was the longest book I've written.

I've written only two novels, but they're both long ones, and they each took a decade to write.

'Where The Wild Things Are,' I think I could have written on my own. When I brought Dave Eggers on, I already had 60 pages of notes. I technically could have, but I don't think I was ready to. I needed him to be there and help me.

I labored for eight years thinking I was writing a book for adults that was a nostalgic look back on childhood. Then my publisher informed me I'd written a children's book.

I was always writing the books that I wanted to write, books that demanded to be written at the time. But, like most writers, you start off feeling your way.

There was a time that I was only known for being a plagiarist. It used to hurt at times because there was so much effort I was putting into music. And instead of that, it was a couple tunes that I had reproduced from folk songs to remake as film songs, which were being written about.

I try to get going early, on the assumption that the way you begin your day is the way you continue. But certain books only want to be written at night, so there's no hard rule where work is concerned.

I believe my voice is pretty much the same. I've written 75 books, so I'm better at it now than I was earlier in my career.

Most of the books that I've written have been focused on, sort of, the individual, and sort of, either a voice, a personal voice, or a kind of transforming event where they step forward to fight for something they value.

The problem is once you've written the opening paragraph and worked out how the rest of the story will go in your head, there's nothing in it for you. I write in longhand using disposable fountain pens on the right-hand side of the notebook for the first draft, then I rewrite some of the sentences and paragraphs on the left-hand side.

'The Rose Society' was definitely the hardest book I've ever written, because it's so difficult to stay in that dark space.

After I had written seventeen full-length mysteries, two volumes of mini-mysteries, a travel guide and some quiz books, not to mention a spin-off Roman Mystery Scrolls series, I thought it was time I moved to new historical pastures.

The pen and the written word hold a great deal of power.

I have expressed my opinion through the written word through my books, that is all.