Quotes About Authorship

To be honest, I think Chris Ware is the only person whose books I've actively and consistently purchased for years.

There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.

I have, for a very long time, been a huge admirer of Marilynne Robinson, whose work I just love.

The decision to use a pen name was nothing more than a desire to compartmentalise my life. However, I had not thought about an appropriate pseudonym, and since there's an abundance of anagrams in the novel, the idea struck me: why not use an anagram of my name? Hence, Shawn Haigins.

Let me get something straight: I have no problem with ghostwriting as a thing unto itself. What bothers me is the way it's shrouded in secrecy, ignored to the point of straight-up lying. Why not be honest?

I had written children's books for 14 years before I published 'Wicked.' And none of them were poorly reviewed, and none of them sold enough for me to be able to buy a bed.

If L. Frank Baum had written 'Wicked,' I'd have done. It doesn't appeal to me at all and never did.

I'm not a writing group member, not a joiner in that way. I don't seek a wide swath of feedback.

My first two books, 'Letters to a Young Brother' and 'Letters to a Young Sister,' were... distributed pretty widely. Judges in juvenile justice facilities started citing the book as required reading.

It's been said that I am the most widely read writer of the 20th century. The number of books I've sold runs into untold millions.

I'm beyond thrilled to be working with Faber, whose literary history is second to none. And I'm even more excited to bring my books to a wider audience in the U.K.

When I wrote 'The Pregnant Widow' three or four years ago, I tried to reread my first novel, 'The Rachel Papers,' because their young heroes are the same age. I couldn't finish it. It seemed to me so technically slapdash and weak.

The success of 'The Widow' meant there were expectations for the second book from the first word, and it has created a completely different writing experience. Not to say I haven't enjoyed writing 'The Child,' but I confess there were times when I felt as if I was wrenching it out of my body with bloodied fingernails!

I'm sick of 'Wild Things.'

After 'Where the Wild Things Are,' I guess I felt more confident as a writer.

I'd rather write one good book than ten mediocre ones.

My book 'The Exciting Adventures of Boo' was first published when I was fifteen. It is a children's book with ten different stories. In each story, the main character Boo learns a lesson - one of the ten most important lessons I learned as a kid. I also donated all the money from my books I personally sold to my local ASPCA Animal Shelter.

The first story I can remember writing, that I truly set down on paper, was a Christmas story that I wrote when I was ten years old.

It took me ten years and seven books to bag an agent - it took me that long to start writing good.

How lucky am I? Quite often I speak at book festivals, and people ask me how I got published. There's people who have been working on a book for as long as ten years, and I feel like such a cow.

There were about ten years of trying, failing, trying again, suffering rejection, etc. My first published book, 'Story of a Girl', was the fourth book I wrote.

I completely identify with finding freedom in boundaries. That's why I tend to have more freedom when I write nonfiction over fiction: because I'm running up against actuality and beholden to the truth in a different way.

I think it's fascinating to look at a world that an author has created that has sort of stemmed from the world now, and usually dystopian books point out something about our current world and exaggerates a tendency or a belief.

I have a bad tendency to get rapidly bored with my own material, so rewriting is hard for me. I mean, I already know the story and would rather read something new.