Yes, I learned history at school; I know everything about apartheid. My dad, he bought the books about it, stuff like that. But I just move on with my life. It's completely different for me.
Oh, I wish I organized my books. But I don't. I'm not an organized person. The best I can do is put the books I really like in one sort of general area, and poetry in another.
It's not as if I've been unlucky. My books have been published and reviewed. I haven't lived through terrible literary suffering!
I have known Farley Mowat all of my life, from reading his books as a child to becoming a close friend of his over the last three decades.
Books set in Brooklyn and L.A. are often about people who are rootless, who want to go somewhere else. In the Midwest, though, the stories are about people who want to stay where they are - who like where they are.
Catch me on a good day, I think half of my books aren't too bad. Catch me on a bad day, I think I've never written a good line.
I haven't the faintest idea what my royalties are. I haven't the faintest idea how many copies of books sold, or how many books that I've written. I could look these things up; I have no interest in them. I don't know how much money I have. There are a lot of things I just don't care about.
The deeper I go into mythology, the more I find. I originally did five 'Percy Jackson' books. I thought that would cover Greek mythology and I couldn't have been more wrong. It's ever-expanding.
I think that school just isn't for everyone. A lot of people don't learn well when they're - have to sit in a place for eight hours. A lot of people learn best lying in their own bed, teaching themselves from books. And I was a bad student. I was a brat. If I was a teacher, I would not have liked myself.
I think the hardcore fans can expect exactly what both 'The Hunger Games' and 'Catching Fire' delivered: 'Mockingjay' is going to be as faithful a rendition of Suzanne's Collins's world and books and characters as we can put out!
I love meeting people who've read my books. The prime reason to be on the planet is to make things I can show to other people: paintings, books, movies.
As a small kid, I came across things like these early Edward Gorey books in department-store bookstores. These were these really unusual objects to me. I didn't know how they fit into the comic world or into newspaper comics.
I think books should have secrets, like people do.
The U.S. has a law on the books called the debt limit, but the name is misleading. The debt limit started in 1917 for the purpose of facilitating more national debt, not reducing it. It still serves that purpose. It's unconnected to spending, hurts our credit rating and has been an abject failure at limiting debt.
Comic books were just the means for me to tell the story.
Since I was eight years old. I didn't have a TV, so comic books were definitely my television, my soap operas, and all that.
I think the most important lesson isn't necessarily to try and write a different book every time, or to try and brand yourself and write one specific kind of book, but to write the kind of books you love to read.
I write entertainment. There are some books you read but don't inhale. There are books that will change your life.
I've done a number of things based on real people or true stories or based on books, and I'm a great believer that you have to be true to the script.
I don't read books. I read 'On the Road' in high school, and that was awesome, so I guess that's my favorite book. 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' even though I didn't read it, that's the greatest story. SparkNotes came in when I was in high school, and that was the greatest invention.
Maybe just as many women writers as male writers could be billed as the next great American writer by their publisher. Maybe book criticism sections could review an equal amount of female and male writers. Maybe Oprah could start putting some books by women authors in her book club, since most of her audience is women.
Mentoring is the last refuge of the older artist. With luck, disciples will keep one's books in print, one's reputation alive.
All of the narration in 'Smile' is first-person. Most of the books that I grew up reading had first-person narrators for some reason. My diaries were written in this voice, and since this story is autobiographical, it just felt like a natural extension.
I don't like to write boring books.
I really have lived in books. Books are friends. They are some of the friends that make you who you are.
The progress of science is much more muddled than is depicted in most history books. This is especially true of theoretical physics, partly because history is written by the victorious.
Three children have become adults since a phone call with Jo Rowling, containing one small clue, persuaded me that there was more to Snape than an unchanging costume, and that even though only three of the books were out at that time, she held the entire massive but delicate narrative in the surest of hands.
I still carry the residue of the pressure I felt as a child to read and appreciate the right books. Growing up, I never allowed myself to read beach reading. I was always plowing through Ford Madox Ford's 'Good Solider' or something I wasn't equipped to understand.
Also, most people read fiction as an escape - and I wonder whether my books aren't a bit too grounded in reality to reach the widest possible audience.
An author entices the readers with their words, and it is painful for them to even lose a sentence. But films and books are two different mediums and should be dealt differently. What works in a book might not work for a film. When I saw 'Anna Karenina' on screen, I didn't like it at all, whereas 'The Godfather' was legendary.
If you read a lot of books, you're considered well-read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you're not considered well-viewed.
In an age of never-ending health fads, it's comforting to learn that one of the healthiest activities you can do has existed for millennia. It's called reading. Yes, books are not just entertaining or educational: they can also improve your mental health.
There are scenes from books I'm happy with. I tend to think my books are all broken. But then my favourite reads are almost always books that don't, in the end, pull off what they set out to do.
I don't plot my books rigidly, follow a preconceived structure. A novel mustn't be a closed system - it's a quest.
'Rescue Me' is the first book in a three-book series. Although, like all my series, the books are purposely written so that readers do not have to read them in order.
Overall, I'd say I was an awesome bookseller, but probably not the best book shelver. I loved recommending books and helping people find books.
