Magna Carta has 63 clauses in abbreviated Latin. Two of them that are still on the statute book, numbers 39 and 40, could be said to have changed the way in which the free world has grown.
It's more fun to have a name rather than a number. I think this gives our products a personality. I get the names from literature, movies, opera, traveling, nature, poetry, sometimes even the street. I keep a small book that I write in. I wake up in the middle of the night and jot down a name for a lipstick or an eyeshadow.
Oh how I wish I could be as obsessive as Carrie from 'Homeland' when I'm writing a book! That would save me a lot of trouble during the revision process.
People say there's a book in everyone but I'm not sure there is. There might be a pamphlet in me.
When 'Tracks' first came out, I was courted by Sydney Pollack. I had lunch with him, and he opened the conversation with, 'Honey, you ain't gonna like what I'm gonna do to your book.' I really liked him, but I turned him down, because - well, I was stupid. I also turned down a great deal of money.
I assumed 'Freak the Mighty' was probably too weird and melodramatic to find a publisher. I certainly never expected the book to have a profound influence on my career as a writer, but indeed it has.
In 1916, Universal Studios released the first filmed adaptation of Jules Verne's novel '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.' Georges Melies made a film by that name in 1907, but, unlike his earlier adaptations of Verne, Melies' version bears no resemblance to the book.
In the case of 'The Book Thief,' my research was hearing the stories of my parents when I was a child. But I started changing the stories when I began moulding the book.
The reason I call my book 'Irreverent' is because there were a lot of pictures that were very irreverent. Maybe I could call my book 'Forgiving' because maybe I made a lot of errors, too.
I came to think that nobody from England could draw American comic books, because they were clearly all done by this sort of Mafia, all these guys with Italian and Irish names who had the whole thing sewn up. It was actually seeing a comic book drawn by Barry Smith, who was about my age, and English.
Man was very fortunate to have invented the book. Without it, the past would completely vanish, and we would be left with nothing, we would be naked on earth.
At the very end of a book I can manage to work for longer stretches, but mostly, making stuff up for three hours, that's enough. I can't do any more. At the end of the day I might tinker with my morning's work and maybe write some again. But I think three hours is fine.
For solace, I love a book that opens up my perspective.
When I was younger, I was diagnosed with dyslexia, which meant, for me, sitting in front of a book was really hard - until I discovered Harry Potter, and this character, this 11-year-old boy, who suddenly gets off to school for the first time, captured my imagination, and suddenly reading was fun. Reading was inspiring, and I was motivated.
I think 'Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned' might be a perfect book.
I obsess over things... especially my book projects. It can be very time consuming.
Interviews don't go to the core of my life. Everybody knows my life - it's an open book.
I buy a lot of books I never read. But that's not really a waste, since all it takes is one idea from even one book to radically reshape the way a person leads, thinks and lives.
A lot of people have said to me, 'That's a great idea, running for president. You'll get booked for more speeches. You can write a book.'
There are two questions that you ask yourself as a writer, and one of them is, 'But why?' The question that takes the book forward is, 'What if? What if x y or z happened? How would those characters react?'
As a boy, I devoured comics but never saw what we now describe as a picture book.
When I start any book, I have no idea what I'm going to do.
My first book was poetry, but I didn't write it first. I wrote it third. So my first two books were prose.
I was very fortunate that my first novel captivated the imaginations of so many readers who asked for a sequel. After that, one book led to another as I discovered other facets to my characters I wanted to investigate further.
Unbeknown to me, my manager, under my very nose (in a crouching position) has all these years been secretly compiling a book from my correspondence. I often wondered what she was doing in my office. She never did a stroke of work for me. All the time, I have been working for her.
Digital organisms, while not necessarily any more alive than a phone book, are strings of code that replicate and evolve over time. Digital codes are strings of binary digits - bits.
For something that's supposed to be secret, there is a lot of intelligence history. Every time I read one book, two more are published.
A good book is a good book. End of story.
One lesson I learned from 'The Monstrumologist' was never to get too attached to your own characters. That's harder in practice than in theory. At the end of the third book - which coincided with the end of my contract - I was an emotional wreck. I mourned Will Henry and Warthrop.
I became a writer because I love to read, yet I never get to unless I'm reviewing a book or doing research.
I think of a book and a play, or a book and a movie, as two separate things - I don't think of it as my novel having a new life.
'The Pushcart War' is presented as a history of a conflict that has not yet taken place; in each edition of the book, the date on which the hostilities commenced is nudged forward.
I remember thinking that people were crazy for reading the same book more than once, but I now have a new-found appreciation for the re-discovery of literature. The lessons we learned from books in the school curriculum are reinvented and updated when we read as adults.
For me, any book I'm writing is also a chance to get in and research and read and learn things that I maybe only knew a little bit about before.
My father said, 'You should do 'A Day in the Life of Medicine.' A book about how the human race wants to heal itself in new ways.
As a kid, I'd buy novels with these magnificent Chris Fosse covers which showed an enormous contraption hovering over a planet, and you'd always think 'Where's that going to come in?' And it never did! It was always slightly disappointing when the contents of a book never lived up to the cover.
