Book Quotes
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If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!
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I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.
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The subordinate's job is not to reform or reeducate the boss, not to make him conform to what the business schools or the management book say bosses should be like. It is to enable a particular boss to perform as a unique individual.
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When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.
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I don't write books for people to be friends with the characters. If you want to find friends, go to a cocktail party.
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Print will never die. There's no substitute for the feel of an actual book. I adore physically turning pages, and being able to underline passages and not worrying about dropping them in the bath or running out of power. I also find print books objects of beauty.
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My greatest fear is disappointing the reader, so each book has to be better than the one before.
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I can read in any book and newspaper about the city of Detroit, but I want to hear what the people in Detroit have to say about Detroit. My best education is actually talking to people.
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But my body was telling its story. I have read a lot of stuff about cancer. I needed this book. I wish I'd had this book when I had cancer. I wanted someone to be talking to me about "fart floors." I wanted somebody telling me what it was like to have a colostomy bag. I felt so alone. And if you're a person who's been traumatized by past abuse, it's so potentially re-traumatizing. You slip right into "oh my god, this is the only person this has happened to before" mentality: "I'm especially bad and I have especially bad cancer..."
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When you trust your readers, you're hoping they will see what you see. Not every book is for every person.
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Back at his chair he cannot remember what he was reading. He feels the books beside him to find the one that is warm.
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Nothing in this book is true.
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Not being the sort to throw a book, she pounded her fist on her cushion.
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I never really approach any project or story thinking of themes first or what a certain character 'represents.' Maybe other writers do, but for me, it just starts with the characters and a certain emotion I want to convey. It usually isn't until I get deeper into a book and look back a bit that I start to see the themes, etc.
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I never used an outline until I started "The Bourne Legacy" project for which I was required to write an outline. To be honest, I thought I'd hate the idea, assuming that if I'd thought of all the ideas at the outset I'd have to incentive to actually write the book, because for me part of the joy of writing are the surprises you come upon as the book takes shape. But something curious and exciting happened. As I wrote the outline, some sections would be very detailed, others quite sketchy, so that whole portions of the book would be covered by one line, such as "Bourne is chased by Khan through Budapest," which when I wrote the novel turned out to be 40-50 pages! Now I'll never write a novel without first doing an outline. Looking back on it, I used to get bogged down in extraneous characters and situations, especially during the first 100 pages (which I find the most difficult to write) that I would later have to scrap, wasting time and energy, and frustrating me. Now that never happens.
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There is a chapter in my book that is dedicated to the whole Comic-Con world, dedicated to the fans, and it features all the biggest names from the con world out there saying the most outrageous stuff you can imagine. If you want to see the entire cast of "The Avengers" going off, you gotta read it. It's super fun. Even George Lucas is there, and he's filthy!
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In my head, the 5 issues of A Spoon Too Short comprise one novel: a 100 page graphic novel sequel to Douglas' two Dirk books, taking some of the ideas he was working on before he died, and a whole bunch of new stuff from me and a little from Max Landis (who is the Executive Producer on the book as well as writing the forthcoming TV series).
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People come, people go – they’ll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures. Then you find yourself focusing on the new ones, not the ones from the past.
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When I was a kid, a book I read advised young artist to be themselves. That decided it for me. I was a corny kind of guy, so I went in for corn.
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I spend a huge amount of time writing about the book instead of writing the actual text.
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Comic books are what novels used to be - an accessible, vernacular form with mass appeal - and if the highbrows are right, they're a form perfectly suited to our dumbed-down culture and collective attention deficit.
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I've read all the books but one Only remains sacred: this Volume of wonders, open Always before my eyes.
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I think being raised within a Mexican Catholic family made magical realism a very natural part of who I am as a person and as a writer. My parents always told us great stories that often had magical elements and roots within Mexican folklore. Also, I remember my father reading a book to me, when I was very young, about the lives of saints. Those were crazy scary stories! Maybe he was trying to scare me into being a good person. In the end, magical realism offers me untethered freedom to explore human frailty and the way we clumsily cobble together our lives on this strange planet.
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I've been approached many times to write all sorts of books about my past and my personal life. I get interest from people who want to do reality shows, and somebody just offered me a huge amount of money to write my spiritual memoirs. I'm just not interested.
