Book Quotes - Page 538

I think having a good agent is key. I've been with mine for ten years now, and she's very honest with me. There are a lot of times I've sent her books that were not so good because I was tired of writing, or panicked about money, and she's told me flat out, "You don't want this to be your next book. Trust me."

Maybe other writers have perfect first drafts, but I am not one of them. I always try to get the book as tight as I can, but you reach a point as the author where you have lost all perspective.

I think part of the problem sometimes is that there's so much happening in my books, to whittle it down into a single script is hard.

Each time, I think I'm never going to write another book. It never gets easier.

My books are so tame!

Once, she'd been a pro at decompressing, loved to sit on the back deck of the beach house in one of our splintery Adirondack chairs for hours at a time, staring at the ocean. She never had a book or the paper or anything else to distract her. Just the horizon, but it kept her attention, her gaze unwavering. Maybe it was the absence of thought that she loved about being out there, the world narrowing to just the pounding of the waves as the water moved in and out.

It was a basic plot in any number of her books: girl strikes out, makes good, finds love, gets revenge. In that order. The making good and striking out part I liked. The rest would just be bonus.

It's a great compliment that people think they're fast reads. It's always funny to me because it takes so long to get a book (written) -- for me, it's never quick.

I am never happy when I finish a book. I always start feeling good, and then I get to about Page 75 and start losing momentum - and I kind of pull it together at the end, but by then I think it's just all over. It's become almost a running joke among my agent and my editor - I always say that, so they don't take me seriously anymore.

My library card. Every hurdle I've faced, I have researched my way over at a library. I'm grateful for that part of the American spirit that believes every citizen should have access to books.

Since the choice of what we curl up with is often crucial for our solace and sanity, we need to learn how to nurture the talent of selection. Book browsing is a meditative art...Books are as essential as breathing.

She accepted it from then on. Books liked her. Books wanted to look after her.

To Fred, those years seemed to pass like quickly skimming a book and then finding the ending wasn't what he expected. He wished he'd paid more attention to the story.

My comedy notebooks are filled with random journal entries. It's all the same. I can look back on old joke notebooks, and know exactly what was going on in my life.

My books have been translated into various languages and sold in other countries, but I never have any contact with the foreign publishers and am so disconnected from that process that it seems almost imaginary. With 'How to Save a Life', I worked closely with Usborne editors and have been involved in the publicity.

One of my favorite authors is Robert Cormier. He was a devout Catholic and a very nice man, which might not be the impression you get from reading his books.

My first published book, Story of a Girl, was the fourth book I wrote.

My books usually end where they began. I try to bring characters back to a point that is familiar but different because of the growth that they have gone through.

There were about ten years of trying, failing, trying again, suffering rejection, etc. My first published book, 'Story of a Girl', was the fourth book I wrote.

A book is a story, even if it's non-fiction, and once I've read it, I have the story with me inside my head always.

Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire.

Researching books gets you into nothing but trouble.

I'm a library user and I just don't hoard books. To me, they're for sharing.

Books exist for me not as physical entities with pages and binding, but in the province of my mind.

It may take a village to raise a baby, but hell! it takes an army to produce a book.