Thomas Mallon Quotes
I actually think that Bandbox, by far the silliest of my books, is the best constructed of them.
Quotes to Explore
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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.
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For the price of a couple of Happy Meals, you can buy a digital textbook and stop your child from having to carry around a six-pound book.
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On two or three book tours, I have visited bookstores in the Mall of America and signed copies of my books and introduced myself to store employees who I hope will sell them.
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I have a long view of history - my orientation is archaeological because I'm always thinking in terms of ancient Greece and Rome, ancient Persia and Egypt.
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I went to drama school in England, and you spend your first year working on the muscles surrounding the vocal mechanisms. You learn how you support it and create characters through your voice so that became an obsession. So I went to Hollywood thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to be one of the great voice-over artists.'
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As a self-published author, you have the choice. Embrace the power to create a book that is truly yours. Don't be a whiner or a copycat.
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The Internet's impact is immense. My students can't imagine ever paying for a book.
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Terrorists are people, too - they are given to error. Naipaul and then DeLillo do a good job in their novels of drawing this out: I'm thinking of DeLillo's contention in 'Mao II' that terrorists have replaced writers as the people who 'alter the inner-life of the culture.' I thought that was marvellous!
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We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition to thinking of it in generalities.
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What's drinking?A mere pause from thinking!
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The story grew, got way bigger than the contest rules called for, and next thing I knew I had a book.
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I'm always sorry to finish a book, to let go of characters I love, people I've struggled to understand for years, people who evolve before me.
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Each of us, having received several hundred dollars, we passed the time gloriously, spending our money freely - never thinking that our lives were risked gaining it.
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I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. 'The Gathering' did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time.
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I called the doctor, during writing the book, the psychiatrist who treated me at that time, Dr. Jackson. And I said, Dr. Jackson, whole pieces are missing. I don't understand what happened to me.
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The idea is to go out there and win in a dominant fashion. That changes people's minds, the way they're thinking about me, and lets people know I'm here to contend for a title.
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I'm not thinking about what needs to be on the radio. I'm not thinking about anything other than - I'm just going to let this music come out of me and not have any sort of preconceived notion of what I should do. I'm just going to do it.
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There was a time, as a young comic book reader, that I would have proclaimed 'Deadworld' my favorite series.
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I couldn't have known 'Crank' was going to be published, let alone become a big hit. That book was very personal for me: I had to tell the story for myself.
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I think that being vulnerable is about feeling helpless, or powerless... it's about allowing myself to be in a place where I could be hurt.
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I really think that the Jersey Boys musical - and this is just my opinion - lends itself to being cinematic in some way, because its a jukebox musical; the characters break into song only for the scene transitions.
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The "sayings" of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech - it is a gift from heart to heart.
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I actually think that Bandbox, by far the silliest of my books, is the best constructed of them.
