Grinning is something you do when you are entertained in some way, such as reading a good book or watching someone you don't care for spill orange soda all over themselves.
I used to think, 'I'm going to write.' I knew that from quite early on, but I also thought, 'Maybe I'll be an explorer or a spy,' and it all came from books.
To some people, the fact that I am not married, or don't have children, would be the reason I have written a book on punctuation.
I have been writing for 50 years and readers still read my first book from when I was in the Marine Corps.
And that is the problem with a society that doesn't read books. The most painful form of censorship does not come from a centralized, repressive government. It is a cast, black cloak of a nation's indifference.
Old books exert a strange fascination for me -- their smell, their feel, their history; wondering who might have owned them, how they lived, what they felt.
Present-day Spain translates as many books into Spanish, annually, as the Arab world has translated into Arabic in the past 1,100 years.
It's so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I've never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.
If you never ask yourself any questions about the meaning of a passage, you cannot expect the book to give you any insight you do not already possess.
I've always been a fan of books that create an interesting blend of fact and fiction - whether it's Norman Mailer, or 'The Short Timers,' or 'In Cold Blood.' I'm a fan of that genre.
I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human face looking at me.
I actually wrote my first zombie book way before I got the job on 'Saturday Night Live.'
I don't think I'm essentially interested in children's books. I'm interested in writing, and in pictures. I'm interested in people and in children because they are people.
One of the biggest motivations for me with writing my books is to offer girls some escapism, especially girls who really need it, like I did.
I don't write that much horror. People tell me my books are scary, but they're not really; I don't go there.
Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.
Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.
Sometimes you walk out of an audition and you kind of know you nailed it and you're probably going to book it, but you very rarely are told in the room by the people who are hiring you.
Books aren't written, they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it...
There are countless reasons for reading, but when you’re young and uncertain of your identity, of who you may be, one of the most compelling is the quest to discover yourself reflected in the pages of a book.
It's all about people. It's about networking and being nice to people and not burning any bridges. Your book is going to impress, but in the end it is people that are going to hire you.
