Creativity doesn’t come from glancing quickly at your Twitter feed while in line at Starbucks. It comes from deep thought. It comes from voraciously reading books—long books that require focused attention. It comes from meaningful discourse with ...
Back in my days as a children's book editor, my superiors caught on to the fact that teenagers were using the Internet to gossip about each other, and thought it might be nifty to develop a series of books about an anonymous high-school blogger who g...
The library knows that it is a temporary fix. We have a stamp for the inside front cover: BROKEN SPINE NOTED. It is like a bracelet worn by a diabetic. When you return the book with this message stamped inside, we know you're not the one responsible ...
If there’s a zeppelin, it’s alternate history. If there’s a rocketship, it’s science fiction. If there are swords and/or horses, it’s fantasy. A book with swords and horses in it can be turned into science fiction by adding a rocketship to ...
The character I created, 'Commissario Brunetti,' who appears in all my books, shares similar reading, artistic and musical tastes with me. Subconsciously, I knew that if I was to spend however long it would take to write this book with him, this man ...
With my earlier books, I got quite bored being with one protagonist all the way through. With the Alex Morrow books, I wanted to do something a bit more holistic, so there were lots of different points of view, and I wanted to look at aspects of crim...
In L.A., if you're in improv, and you're on those stages, all the big agents and managers and producers are watching those shows. They're not flying to Chicago to see the show. People are booking jobs off the stages in L.A. who aren't more talented t...
With a book called 'Keeping Score,' I really did want to write a book about the Korean War, because I felt that it is the least understood war in the American cultural imagination. So I set out with the idea that Americans didn't know much about the ...
Liesel Meminger: I keep thinking about Max, wondering where he is. Hans Hubermann: Me too. I'm not sure what it all meant. Everything he went through. Everything we did. Liesel Meminger: We were just being people. That's what people do.
I talk to my readers on social networking sites, but I never tell them what the book is about. Writing is lonely, so from time to time I talk to them on the Internet. It's like chatting at a bar without leaving your office. I talk with them about a l...
Louise Vargo: This is my book. Louie: No, it isn't. I got it off from the dead guy, Ghost Dog. Louise Vargo: It takes place in feudal Japan. [Louie is surprised and speechless] Louise Vargo: It's a really good book. You should read it.
Harry: Look, you want to see something cool? [Harry pulls out a copy of a Gossamer book with a hole in it] Harmony: Oh cool! This stopped the bullet, Harry. [Harmony pokes her finger through the hole in the book. Harry taps his bullet wound] Harry: N...
Phillip Morgan: Rupert only publishes books HE likes... usually philosophy. Janet Walker: Oh. Small print, big words, no sales. Brandon Shaw: Rupert's extremely radical. Do you know that he selects his books on the assumption that people not only can...
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...
I vowed to myself that when I grew up and became a theoretical physicist, in addition to doing research, I would write books that I would have liked to have read as a child. So whenever I write, I imagine myself, as a youth, reading my books, being t...
I read the 'Twilight' books before the movie and the whole craze happened. And then I loved it. I was in love with Edward before every other girl that says she's in love with him was. Because I read them a long time ago shooting a movie in Salt Lake ...
People make me key chains... someone attached a Dauntless symbol to a silver pen. That one is what I use to sign books. I use that a lot. I like to keep them around because they remind me that people are waiting for these books and that they really l...
Sometimes people ask why I'm so willing to give out #free copies of my books and the answer is pretty simple. Money is not why I write.So why would I keep someone from enjoying that because they can't afford my book? If your in the arts for money you...
Those who read books cannot understand the teachings and, what's more, may even go astray. But those who try to observe the things going on in the mind, and always take that which is true in their own minds as their standard, never get muddled. They ...
Kid's books should be just as good as any other books. No. They should be held to a *higher* standard than other literature for the same reason that we take extra care with children's food. The fact is, what you feed your kids is important, and that ...
As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the bo...
