I always thought it hadn't influenced me very much, but I heard from many people from England that many motives from German fairytales are to be found in my books.
As frightening as this may sound, what you see in the books is the way I see the world. And so far I haven't seen anything, either in Florida or elsewhere, to dissuade me from it.
I've often wished when I started a book I knew what was going to happen. I talked to writers who write 80-page outlines, and I'm just in awe of that.
My dear wife has, I would say, probably never opened a religious book, and seems to be one of those people to whom the whole idea is utterly remote and absurd.
As an author, I want to write what I’m inspired to write. Not what my readers want me to write. I feel like the books will ultimately be better if my heart is fully into what I’m writing.
I have become so used to having people say, 'We loved your movie' instead of 'We read your book' that now I merely say, 'Thanks.'
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.
It must be a really great book because one can read it as a boy in one way, and then re-read it in middle life and get something very different out of it - and that to my mind is one of the best tests.
Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.
The world has been printing books for 450 years, and yet gunpowder still has a wider circulation. Never mind! Printer's ink is the greater explosive: it will win.
And every book, you find, has its own social group - friends of its own it wants to introduce you to, like a party in a library that need never, ever end.
There is no one so grateful as the man to whom you have given just the book his soul needed and he never knew it. - Roger Mifflin
You sell a man a book, you don’t sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life.
When you sell a man a book you don't sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life.
When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life.
Students are very gullible about the web. The only way you can really sort out information on the web is if you've had a prior training in book culture.
The act of writing is a way of tricking yourself into revealing something that you would never consciously put into the world. Sometimes I'm shocked by the deeply personal things I've put into books without realizing it.
I wouldn't get nearly as many books written if I lived in New York. The Columbia Gorge is fantastic. When the sun shines, I just want to be outdoors.
While writing, I tend to repeat the same song, endlessly, for thousands of times. This helps me ignore any lyrics, and helps create a consistent mood for each book.
Rod Cockshutt, Professor Emeritus at N.C. State University called my book, Evidence of Insanity, "an extraordinary achievement" and told me to not change the last 10-15 pages no matter what.
A weird sort of awareness set in, like, 'Wow. My standup isn't just separate from everything else I do anymore.' With Twitter and Face book, everything is universal that everything everybody says gets seen.
