Ellen Raskin Quotes
I try to say one thing with my work: A book is a wonderful place to be. A book is a package, a gift package, a surprise package-and within the wrappings is a whole new world and beyond.
Quotes to Explore
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Readers want to have the confidence that you understand the era in which the book is set, so for 'The Perfumer's Secret,' I needed to know everything about the First World War from a French perspective. I had to understand those people and that town in 1914.
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I've planned book tours for myself, whether or not anybody wants to hear what I have to say. I've weighed in on things like what the cover looks like, what the copy looks like, how it's going to be promoted - just every aspect of it.
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I think you live a fuller life with someone else, you know, you're firing on all cylinders. It can be a nightmare at times, we all know that, but nevertheless in the end I think to have someone else's input on anything - a book, a meal, your children, life, a walk - is fantastic.
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One half who graduate from college never read another book.
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On the streets, hanging out with the fellows, there are things you learn that no book can teach you.
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In my downtime, you'll mostly find me curled up with a book. I love reading biographies. My favourites are those of Dalai Lama, Osama Bin Laden, and Einstein.
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One of the pleasantest things about book writing is that sometimes it brings one in touch with old friends.
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Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.
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It's easier to release an ebook than a print book.
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I love writing two narratives! I think concurrent storylines are my favorite way to write a book.
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I don't really know what the Great American Novel is. I like the idea that there could be one now, and I wouldn't object if someone thought it was mine, but I don't claim to have written that - I just wrote my book.
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My method is, I just sit down and write a book.
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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?
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What I look for in any book is an argument, based on evidence, that changes the way I think about something important.
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We did a play of 'Frog and Toad' at my elementary school. And I'm not sure if this is part of the book or it was something that we made up on our own, but I auditioned to play the black hole, which somehow makes sense to me.
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A novelist's lack of awareness of and critical distance to his own body of work is due to a phenomenon that I have noticed in myself and many others: as soon as it is written, every new book erases the last one, leaving me with the impression that I have forgotten it.
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Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.
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I lived for four years in the 1930s with these individuals and the only time that I wasn't thinking about dealing with physical suffering is when I was working on this book. I've never been more alive as when I worked on this book.
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The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one.
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It's so funny, actors usually have a directing ambition. I've got no ambition for directing.
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The biggest accomplishment, in racial terms, for Barack Obama was being elected. He had to overcome his blackness to be elected. He climbed the Mt. Everest of American politics, becoming an historic first.
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If one can create a purposeful, meaningful life then there's no room for drugs or alcohol. It's not on the list anymore.
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The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty . . . . Not the least of its virtues is that it destroys basic people as certainly as it fortifies and dignifies noble people.
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I try to say one thing with my work: A book is a wonderful place to be. A book is a package, a gift package, a surprise package-and within the wrappings is a whole new world and beyond.
