Anywhere you go in the world is what you make of it, not what you read in books.
I love seeing a story evolve over several books and watching characters develop.
Every night, I was read to. Every Friday, we were taken to the library. I always received at least one book for my birthday. I have a few of them yet. Early on, I had my own collection of books. I loved to read. Still do.
Even though I've reached retirement age, I still plan to work - writing my investment newsletter, speaking at conferences, publishing books, and producing conferences like FreedomFest.
The more books we read, the clearer it becomes that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consequence.
It is right and natural that generous minds while in the twenties should think the books which try to reform the world's wrong the greatest of all.
I don't like books, they're all fact, no heart.
You can find dozens of books about people taking the Trans-Siberian Railroad. I knew I had to do something different to cross Siberia. To drive and to talk with people along the way, that was how I wrote my book 'Great Plains'. I drove and camped in Siberia, but did not have a real program.
I'm a people person, very approachable. I go out every night, tons of functions. I love all facets of this industry... Music, film, TV, books, art. I love being around creative people.
Generally my typical books have lots of twists and turns a big surprise ending and then usually another surprise at the end and ideally, as in Garden of Beasts, we get to the very end and we find at the last few pages that there's yet another surprise.
There are certain historical figures of such importance that we need to know everything about them, which is why books about Napoleon, Lincoln, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, and the great religious founders continue to proliferate; these lives require constant reevaluation and interpretation.
The Twist was a guided missile launched from the ghetto into the heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.
There are a lot of Chinese comics, but the Chinese comics tend to be more historical and conservative. Japanese culture, just the comics are amazing. They're like films: very few words; they move so much in these books with hundreds of pages.
I used to tell my writing students that they must write the books they wished they could come upon - because then the books they hungered and thirsted for would exist.
If you read my books, especially the Star Trek books and the Quest for Tomorrow books, you'll see in them the core theme of the basic humanistic questions that Star Trek asked.
The deadlines are much, much longer with books. When I was a reporter, a lot of times I'd come in at 8:30 a.m., get an assignment right away, interview somebody, turn the story in by 9:30, and have the finished story in the paper that landed on my desk by noon.
For as spiritual as some people think my books are, I've never really dealt with religious things.
Artists are political in the sense that they've subtracted themselves from the structure of the marketplace and are contributing something that's not utilitarian. Even though books get sold, and I get advances, I get to look at society and think for a living.
Whether it is the cavemen in the caves thousands of years ago, Shakespeare plays, television, movies and books, stories and characters take us on a journey. All I do is tell those stories without scripts and without actors.
I have written a few children's books. The first book that I wrote was for children. It was called 'The Package', and it was a mystery story in pictures. It had no words.
Let's face it: Most of us don't realize it, but we are failing our kids as reading role models. The best role models are in the home: brothers, fathers, grandfathers; mothers, sisters, grandmothers. Moms and dads, it's important that your kids see you reading. Not just books - reading the newspaper is good, too.
That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.
A friend of mine once told me that I can't screw up when I play my own music. I also take voice lessons, play other peoples' songs out of music books, and occasionally figure out how to play other people's music from records. This keeps my ears, fingers, and mind working.
I loved to read, still do, and it seemed that the writing was a result of the love of books and reading and libraries.
These days, there are a great many books about childhood trauma and its effects, but at the time all the experts agreed that one should forget about it as quickly as possible and pick up where you left off.
I really hate those books where the murderer turns out to be somebody you never heard of who pops up in the last chapter.
I am something of an aficionado of thrift stores. In my youth, I regularly searched their shelves for old books.
I don't care what people are saying about me, good or bad, in blogs or on Twitter or in the media. There will always be people who don't like you and don't like your books. Ignore them.
These days, there are many people around the world who listen to the songs that made me infamous and read the books that made me respectable.
In books, as in life, there are no second chances. On second thought: it's the next work, still to be written, that offers the second chance.
I like books that explore identity and youth culture or rites of passage.
I think a lot of writers are unrealistic about having their books translated into film.
Writing books is fun because after I do a show for a couple hours, I'm in a bus for 22 hours. It's not hard for me to look out the window and tell a joke here and there.
I consciously try not to play favorites with my characters or my books.
The first books I was interested in were all about baseball. But I can't think of one single book that changed my life in any way.
Electronic books are junk.
