I basically wrote five books with 'Night Soldiers,' called them novellas, and came in with a 600-page manuscript.
Great books are rare.
It's hard recommending books for kids, and a huge responsibility. If you get it wrong, they don't tell you they hate that particular book, they tell you they hate reading.
You have to have talent to some extent - I certainly hope I have talent - but you have to have luck as well. Once you get that first shot, that will get you noticed for the rest of your books and that will give the rest of your books a better chance.
Every time one of my books sells a million copies in paperback, Pan Macmillan gives me a gold statuette of Pan. I have about 20 of them.
I'm often asked how I write books, but I don't think my approach is suitable for everyone. If I walked into a creative writing class, all I could say to them was 'I tend to make it up as I go along.' I'm not sure that's brilliant advice.
I remember very vividly - I wrote about it in one of my books - my first IRA. I contributed $2,000 every year, and in 21 years, the funds in that IRA account grew to $260,000. Seems like sort of a miracle, but it happened.
I'm trying to write books that taste like ice cream but have the nutrition of vegetables.
The number one person who needs my books is me. I'm not some sort of disinterested guru who has worked life out and is handing things out to the poor people who might not have life worked out.
Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost.
We are one people with one family. We all live in the same house... and through books, through information, we must find a way to say to people that we must lay down the burden of hate. For hate is too heavy a burden to bear.
While novels are fiction, mine are usually very close to my heart. Like my other books, 'The Lemon Orchard' is inspired by something I care about. I care so deeply. The stories are my dreams, and I want to do a lot of research. Roberto is based on a real live friend of mine named Armando who worked in my garden.
I want my books to sell, to be read. I'm not interested in being obscure.
Eight was about the age I was when I realized that people actually produced books, they didn't just spring out of the library shelves.
Reviewers have called my books 'novels in verse.' I think of them as written in prose, but I do use stanzas. Stanza means 'room' in Latin, and I wanted there to be 'room' - breathing opportunities to receive thoughts and have time to come out of them before starting again at the left margin.
My role was to bring about fairness in the workplace. All I did was implement the laws that were currently on the books.
I have many books that I want to write; I'd like to think that I'll be around for another 20 years or so and write another dozen novels, probably some sort of imaginative literature... Never again another seven-volume saga.
As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.
The further you go, what, I'm gonna wait til I'm 80? Naw, I'm tellin' my story now. I was just moved. I was moved to tell my story. You know? People write books all the time.
I do read books. I suppose it's more or less the same thing, but at least I'm alone and I'm an individual. I can stop anytime I want, which I frequently do.
I used to practice cello while watching TV and films. I watched several complete TV series this way, including 'Lost' and 'The Wire.' As a kid, I'd read books while playing.
We've had really good mainstream publicity for these books and both Wanted and Chosen were snapped up as movie deals before each series even ended so I'm honestly just pinching myself.
I grew up in a household without a TV. We lived next door to a library for a while, and at one point, I checked out all the books in the fairy tale section. I remember the librarian's quiet smile as I'd bring back one stack and exchange it for another.
I tried to reject everything I knew as a TV writer when I decided to be a novelist, and the books didn't work. Finally I realized I should go back to all the techniques I'd learned.
When I think about the books I've written, it probably takes 150,000-200,000 words to get a 50,000 page book. Highlighting something and hitting Cmd-X is second nature.
My books were attacked constantly by the Communist Party for not hewing to the Party line. I have never hewed to a Party line of any kind.
There are very few well-adjusted people in my books. But I do think that's normal. Because everyone does have their issues and hang-ups.
I think if a book has the power to move a reader, it also has the power to offend a reader. And you want your books to have power, so you just have to take what comes with that.
There's a blockbuster side to Knopf, whether it's P. D. James or John le Carre or our best-selling books. We try to sell our writers as aggressively as those houses regarded as commercial with a capital C.
I don't need validation, recognition or praise. What I need are facts and the facts are that one of my books gets sold, somewhere in the world, every second.
I can do web, comic books, macrame, art.
Throughout my career as a lawyer, teacher and labor leader, books have remained my constant companion - stuffed into a briefcase, overflowing on my bedside table, stacked on my desk at work. Books have carried me to distant worlds, opened new doors and made me feel empathy, compassion, anger, fear, joy, acceptance - and everything in between.
The more messy women that we put on screen, that we put in books, the more women can feel represented and seen, then they can access their own stuff, feel it's okay, and then have the strength to speak out about things like we're talking about. About rising up.
I've never owned a T-shirt. I don't like vests or sweaters or cardies with zips. I like a proper shirt with a collar. There's nothing else that I think I look nice in. I don't think there's anything else that other men look nice in, to be honest. Things with words on! Can you imagine? On grown-ups! Words are to make books with.
Normally, I just sit in my quiet little room and do the small things that bring me pleasures. I read my books, I answer email, I write a little bit.
When I was younger, I was drawn to Ayn Rand books and other works of fiction celebrating individualism.
