Quotes About Authorship

I like to write. Prolific is part of who I am.

In every book I write, I try to name-check the most prominent influences, or the most prominent conscious influences.

I write for a lot of places, so I'm on a lot of promo lists.

I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works - I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff.

I don't actually do anything special to get in the proper frame of mind for creepy/heinous scenes.

So I had a ghostwriter, they call them, or somebody who is an experienced writer, to help. I've got the ideas in my head, it's getting them properly on paper.

The apostolic writings are of three kinds: historical, didactic, and prophetic.

The difficulty of writing a second novel is directly proportional to how successful the first novel was, it seems.

Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.

I started out as a writer. Poetry and prose and also kind of satirical David Sedaris-esque stuff.

There's a half-conscious state you enter when you're actually generating prose, and you are simply a better writer in that place. In fact it's the only place where you even are a writer.

I come from a prose background. I come from short story background, and that led me into novels.

I love writing prose. I really love writing prose. It's very pleasurable for me.

It may sound very strange, but I love the freedom that writing a novel gives me. It is an unhindered experience. If I come after a bad day, I can decide that my protagonist will die on page 100 of my novel in a 350-page story.

I think every writer has got to direct. If you don't direct, you can't protect your work. The only way to ensure that it's going to be as close as possible to what you put down on paper - and what you see and hear in your head - is to do it yourself.

But I always reassure them that as far as my contractual rights can go, I will protect them and make sure that they have approval over every bit of it so that they know I won't show something that's embarrassing.

I do not feel I have a legacy to protect.

The only thing that's really important is the stuff he wrote. That's what he cared about, and that's what's worth protecting. The myth and the man time eventually separates. But the work endures.

People are more naturally protective of what they create than of what they consume.

I think that was very important to Bacon... personally. I think he went to great efforts to get a house for the Stratford man, to make it so difficult for us to prove that it was Francis Bacon, because it is very difficult to prove.

I like being able to provide consistent and frequent literary choices for my fans.

I never can understand how two men can write a book together. To me, that's like three people getting together to have a baby.

Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.

Whatever I am, you did it.