When I went home at 20 to tell my parents, 'I don't want to be an engineer, I want to try and write books,' I was braced for, 'That's not gonna happen.' But I didn't get that response, and maybe it was because of my dad's experience of having an artistic dream and having to put it aside.
One person who has mastered life is better than a thousand persons who have mastered only the contents of books, but no one can get anything out of life without God.
If Google Books is successful, others will follow.
It's been said that I am the most widely read writer of the 20th century. The number of books I've sold runs into untold millions.
My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
I try to write the books I would love to come upon that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness - and that can make me laugh.
I got into an argument with my original publisher. They wanted me to do 'Kitty' and nothing else. I wanted to do lots of things, not just 'Kitty' books.
Inspiration comes from everywhere. From life, observing people, etc. From movies and books you love. From research.
'The Tin Drum' is one of my favourite books of all time - I've probably got 12 or 15 copies with different covers, different translations - but it's also just about my favourite film.
About 75 percent of the crude oil marketed here is sold off the books, and they are doing trades that would be illegal if it was a regulated market, and of course they do not want to regulate it.
My books are character-driven. They're not driven by the story.
I shy away from showing cruelty on the page. A lot of the violence in my books actually happens off stage. The police come on to the scene after the event has occurred.
Then one day I thought it would be wonderful to make a whole book, to make my text and my drawings together, and that's how I started doing children's books.
I cannot live without books.
In the '50s, a lot of stories were built around radiation and the proliferation of new technology. In the '70s, there were a lot of stories that dealt with the Vietnam War. So comic books have always been a reflection of the times we live in.
I think there is a chance that Indian writers in America will start producing very interesting books in the years to come.
Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.
I don't bring expectations to any of my books. I don't tell people what to do. I want to invite them in.
Magic came very easy for me when I was a kid. When I was 8 years old I started doing it, and by the time I was 12, I was already published in magic books.
I'm a visual person, so it always starts with a picture, and then I get obsessed with the idea, sometimes too much. I have these blank books in which I take notes, and I add postcards and other physical items.
When Superman was originally created, by Siegel and Shuster, they were two Jewish immigrants that were desperately trying to assimilate into America. They were having a hard time because they were Jewish. They wanted to get in to mainstream publishing but they couldn't. That's why they, and a lot of Jewish guys, went into comic books.
Black Books adheres to a more old fashioned, traditional sitcom format, which I think works, because in its own way, it's quite theatrical.
Really, I prefer not to read my early books. Not that I don't like them, but I don't recognize myself anymore, like an old actor watching himself as a young leading man.
I love books. I read voraciously, and I happened to have been fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time.
Books are the ever burning lamps of accumulated wisdom.
Ever since the end of Medieval feudalism, and the writings of John Locke, we have understood the importance of being able to buy and sell one's own property, including books and watches, both for reasons of economics and liberty.
Cambridge was a joy. Tediously. People reading books in a posh place. It was my fantasy. I loved it. I miss it still.
I have written two nonfiction books, I'm embarrassed to say.
We're all Vanilla Ice. Look at Girl Talk and Danger Mouse. Look at William Burroughs, whose cut-up books antedate hip hop sampling by decades. Shakespeare remixed passages of Holinshed's 'Chronicles' in 'Henry VI.' Tchaikovsky's '1812 Overture' embeds the French national anthem.
A man loses contact with reality if he is not surrounded by his books.
When I was reading books for 'Seesaw Girl,' I came across several references to the fact that in the 11th and 12th centuries, Korean pottery was considered the finest in the world. I liked that - the idea of a little tiny country being the best at something.
You write a book and you hope somebody will go out and pay $24.95 for what you've just said. I think books were my salvation. Books saved me from being miserable.
Anyway, in the mid 80's I was spending a fortune buying old Golden Age books from the late 30's and 40's and I was making personal appearances at a lot of sci fi and comic book conventions all around the country here so that I could find books for my collection.
It's hard for me to measure them, or to assess my books because I'm so close to them.
I don't read magazines much, and I have an awful time with books.
I'm fortunate that the books sell, but even more fortunate to live in Chatham, to be very happily married and to have, on the whole, a fairly clear conscience.
