authors

Most people don't read books, but when they do, mine are the first, and that's enough for me.

I've always said "Writer's Block" is a myth. There is no such thing as writer's block, only writers trying to force something that isn't ready yet. Sometimes I don't write for weeks. And then all of the sudden I'll get a rush of inspiration and you can't drag me away from my notebook. But I don't stress out if I don't hit some arbitrary word count each day or if I go a few days without writing something.

Nobody can be more clownish, more clumsy and sententiously in bad taste than Herman Melville.

I am too much of an imitator to be a true writer.

An author__ strong belief and enthusiasm will affect the writing of the book and often the publisher__ commitment to it.

This is the best time to be an author.

Art is a conversation we are all invited to and are all worthy to participate in. Yes, great works can be intimidating, but no one else in the world has what you have__our voice, your eyes, your feeling and perspective. Other people have written great books, but no one else will ever write YOUR book. It's worth writing. That is the belief that carries me through.

You'll be amazed how much you have in common with Edith Wharton (who struggled to feel worthy of success), Louisa May Alcott (who badly needed money), Madaleine L'Engle (who could have papered an entire house with her rejection letters) and other writers...

I don__ think writers compete, I think they__e all doing separate things in their own style.

Most gothics are overplotted novels whose success or failure hinges on the author's ability to make you believe in the characters and partake of the mood.

To say that Agatha Christie__ characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs.

The public has an exalted view of authors, and rightly so. Great writers impact deeply on our imagination. And yet, behind the kudos, there sometimes lurks a person at odds with the nobility of the author photo or the 'sheer humanity' of the prose style.

I read your diary. I KNOW

The big trinity of publishing: mystery, thrillers and romance. If you can combine all three, then it__ a winner__ trifecta and you__l be rich beyond your dreams.

... in art nothing is more secondary than the author's intentions.

Going by Dr. Marriott's description, Zoe imagined it to be small and elegant as she peered into dozens of shelves, rummaging through the contents. There were globes and charts and atlases, pocket watches and hand-painted Indian silk, gold-plated cutlery, litter coffers of spice, inlaid combs, silver fasteners, trinket boxes, blown-glass figurines, turn-of-the-century postcards with foreign stamps, and portraits of Victorian authors in elaborate frames. But nowhere did she discover a stone of any kind, with or without runes.

Being a bestseller doesnt mean they wrote a great book. Just means they knew a lot of people who would buy it.

An old book was a time capsule. When you opened the front cover, you opened a door to another world__ world accessible through a kind of looking glass made of hard-board and cloth. The author__ voice resonated in the reader__ head with the same words that had resonated in his own as he wrote them. He spoke to the reader from the past. What he had witnessed, experienced, learned, and discovered would live forever. You only had to turn a page to travel in time.