I like terrific writing, but I also like a terrific story. My favorite books have both, and they're by contemporary, commercial American writers.
I believe there is a hero in each of us. The best books are the ones that remind us of who we already are and empower us to embrace our own story.
Read a lot - poems, prose, stories, newspapers, anything. Read books and poems that you think you will like and some that you think might not be for you. You might be surprised.
Don't be so impatient in finding love; take your time & allow the Lord to write that special love story for you. Otherwise you'll be busy reading the back of the book.
I thought that strange syntax was the language of story books. I didn't realize those were poor translations... English from Edwardian times.
It's a discovery of a story when I write a book, a case of inching ahead on each page and discovering what's beyond in the darkness, beyond where you're writing.
I'm always working on a few different stories at once, so there's always some really big coffee table book I'm carrying around.
I have an affection for tangible objects, like books and pages, but people sure do seem to love their Kindles! We're definitely in the middle of a revolution that will determine how people find, read, and experience stories.
I don't want to go slumming in somebody else's pain just to write a book. I want to go into those darker places to shine a light on that experience and come out with a story that validates the human spirit.
The book came after the fall of the Taliban, it says something about Afghan family life. Those kind of stories - what happens behind the scenes on a TV screen - are important.
I think that business book reporting, it's all Jim Collins, it's the story of victory; it's success bias over and over again.
I know I'm not going to book everything I go in on, and that's just the nature of the business. You have to keep hustling and not get down on it. You have to keep at it and find your way in. Everybody's story is different.
The power of the human spirit inspires me. Movies, books, stories, people, anything that reminds us that we are more than just this physical body and our capacity for love and courage can bend reality.
But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.
Sometimes a book is better than it ever had a right to be because of the history the reader brings to the reading and because of the methods educators use to bring a particular story alive.
My folks were busy. My dad was a teacher, and it was during the Second World War, and my mother was working. So I got my stories from films and books. I read a lot, and I love to read to this day.
I feel very privileged to have reached so many kids because a life without stories, without the power of books, would be a very grey world, it's good to add colour.
The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval.
What's funny about Jesus' Son is that I never even wrote that book, I just wrote it down. I would tell these stories and people would say, You should write these things down.
'Confessions of a Video Vixen' is not a book about my encounters with celebrities, or anyone else for that matter. It is my life story, thus far, which just so happens to include some people you may have heard of.
I don't read newspapers, and I've said I don't watch the news. I love books, but I don't read much. What I do is I get people to read to me, and I put the stories in my head.
