Charles McCarry Quotes

I write in a very peculiar way. I think about a book for 25 or 30 years in a kind of inchoate way, and at one point or another, I realize the book is ready to be written. I usually have a character, a first line, and general idea of what the book is going to be about.

Charles McCarry

• Character
• Book

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Quotes to Explore

• Yes, there is a terrible moral in 'Dorian Gray' - a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

  

  Oscar Wilde
  • Book
  • Moral
  • Healthy

• I was devastated when I got the review for my first book. The book came out a couple years before the women's movement broke through, and people were putting it down, asking, 'Why does the woman in this book need to get a divorce? Why can't she just shut up and be happy?'

  

  Gail Sheehy
  • People
  • Up
  • Women

• What we've seen of Rey, she looks like she can handle her stuff. So most of the comments I get are from parents who say how wonderful it is that their little girls can see this character.

  

  Daisy Ridley
  • Character
  • Parents
  • Stuff

• Once I was chased by the king of all scorpions. I have the most notorious animal stories.

  

  Rachel Hunter
  • Animal
  • King
  • Once

• I haven't found it to be particularly enjoyable... ninety percent of the time when I go on dates, I'm thinking, 'I could be reading my book instead.'

  

  Zosia Mamet
  • Time
  • Thinking
  • Book

• The problem with writing a monthly book is that you're going through your work like a man running for a bus, red-faced and out of breath. There isn't time for reflection or critical self-examination.

  

  J. Michael Straczynski
  • Time
  • Work
  • Writing

• I'd like to do something where there's a strong female character and some action. I've done a few stunts in the past.

  

  Vicky McClure
  • Done
  • Character
  • Past

• When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.

  

  W. Somerset Maugham
  • Character
  • Friends
  • Personality

• In the biographical novel, there's only one person involved. I, the author, spend two to five years becoming the main character. I do that so by the time you get to the bottom of Page 2 or 3, you forget your name, where you live, your profession and the year it is. You become the main character of the book. You live the book.

  

  Irving Stone
  • Time
  • Live
  • Character

• When we were subjected to a vicious character assassination campaign orchestrated by senior White House officials and championed by their allies in the right-wing echo chamber, Hillary reached out to us. Her counsel during that tumultuous period was as timely as it was wise.

  

  Valerie Plame
  • Character
  • House
  • Period

• I like to believe, as a writer, that anybody who isn't a reader yet has just not found the right book.

  

  Gabrielle Zevin
  • Believe
  • Book
  • Right

• You have to understand that while I pre-plot the meta story of a given book, I often have no idea of what will happen on the next page, let alone the next chapter. That's what makes it fun for me; I write the books the same way many people read them.

  

  R. A. Salvatore
  • People
  • Book
  • Fun

• I started in theatre, and for me, it was all about transformation. You transform into the character that you're playing.

  

  Rainn Wilson
  • Character
  • Theatre
  • Transformation

• It's easier to release an ebook than a print book.

  

  J. A. Konrath
  • Book
  • Easier
  • Print

• Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.

  

  Malala Yousafzai
  • World
  • Book
  • Remember

• I have two daughters: One an open book, one a locked box. So the question of privacy is a challenging one. How much do kids need? How much should we give? How do we prepare them to live in a world where the very notion of privacy opens a generational chasm?

  

  Nancy Gibbs
  • World
  • Live
  • Book

• Butler's novel 'Kindred' may be the book most widely read by readers outside science fiction; it has been assigned as a text in classrooms and has sold steadily since its publication in 1979.

  

  Karen Joy Fowler
  • May
  • Book
  • Science

• Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.

  

  Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Character
  • Speak
  • Walls

• The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by an invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing.

  

  Joanne Rowling
  • Mind
  • Book
  • Thoughts

• To drift with every passion till my soulIs a stringed lute on which all winds can play, Is it for this that I have given away Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelay, Which do but mar the secret of the whole.

  

  Oscar Wilde
  • Life
  • Control
  • Wisdom

• Bush is the Liberace of Cuban politics. He knows how to play us. He says every single thing they want to hear.

  

  Joe Garcia
  • Single

• Because the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination.

  

  Betty Smith
  • World
  • Believe
  • Live

• I write in a very peculiar way. I think about a book for 25 or 30 years in a kind of inchoate way, and at one point or another, I realize the book is ready to be written. I usually have a character, a first line, and general idea of what the book is going to be about.

  

  Charles McCarry
  • Character
  • Book