Book Quotes
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Kansas City Lightning succeeds as few biographies of jazz musicians have. . . This book is a magnificent achievement; I could hardly put it down.
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I tell you what's really ridiculous--going into a bookstore and there's all these books about yourself. In a way, it feels like you're already dead.
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Um, yeah. I guess lying around reading books all day doesn't do much for physical endurance.
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My first book was a historical novel. I started writing in 1974. In those days, historical novels meant ladies with swelling bosoms on the cover. Basically, it meant historical romance. It was not respectable as a genre.
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The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It's the thing that people create.
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I never thought, in my lifetime, that you'd be able to watch movies, read books and listen to music from a phone, but I guess the technology of tomorrow is here today.
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The way I've talked about my research process is that it was like magpies. I was just sort of moving through all these books and when something shiny would pop out I'd be like, Ooh, I love it! and I'd pluck it out. It's fun to figure out how to use those bits you really love - like I'd read about gold shoes with cork heels. Obviously, Margaret would have to wear those shoes.
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Everybody thinks I'm this delicate little girl. But you can't tell a book by it's cover.' To which she added a momentary smile.
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I can't cook, but I have a nice book of menus... and I can plate and set the table.
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The smaller the ball used in the sport, the better the book.
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You never want to be the worst bowler of the group-because then everyone treats you like you have cancer. "You can do it! We're praying for you." The advice starts. "Use a heavier ball." "Keep your arm straight." "You should get a vasectomy." If you're really bad at bowling like me, they'll ask if want the bumpers up. Not that bowling is that complex anyway. "You want the bumpers? We can get rid of the pins. Why don't you take this coloring book and sit in the corner?"
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Did I say the book of nature is a catechism? Yes, But, after it answers the first question with "God," nothing but questions follow.
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Perhaps no other book has been denounced so vigorously by those who have never read it as has the Book of Mormon.
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This book has neither the virtue of irony nor deserves the sympathy reserved for the truly mad.
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I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man's way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you've got an act.
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I thought, if ever there were a time to write a book about hope, it's now.
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There's a big difference between the National Book Awards and the Academy Awards. At the Academy Awards you can feel the greed and envy and ego. Whereas the National Book Awards are in New York.
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I have quite a close relationship with violence and horror. They are enjoyable and terrible. I try and offset the horror with a sense of satisfaction or humor. You can't write a book that is entirely dark without having little spots that hopefully make you laugh out loud.
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In his recent book, When Brute Force Fails, UCLA's Kleiman argues that new strategies for targeting repeat offenders--including reforms to make probation an effective sanction rather than a feckless joke--could cut crime and reduce prison populations simultaneously. Safer communities, in turn, might produce more hopeful and well-disciplined kids.
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There is no publication in the scientific literature - in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books - that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred.
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I had a lot of issues with the genre, and I probably even had issues with the whole idea of genre. I was coming into it with a certain degree of outsider attitude, and I didn't have a long-term plan. But I think the way it's worked out, it's sort of warped into what I suppose you could say is my own genre. If people like my books, they have some idea of what the next one will be like.
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This book was company for me - I wrote these things when I was in hotels, far from where I normally live. I never intended to publish it.
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I would love to do a musical. I would love that. I would have to find the right book, the right story, but some day I'm going to make one. I would really like to go off and direct a musical. That's what I would really like to do when I grow up.
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I feel like every time I start up, it's like a truck you have to get into 15th gear, so you very solely crank into that mental space where you feel really immersed in the world of the book and then you can just kind of go.
