Book Quotes
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Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will - with luck - come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise.
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With 'Free Agent Nation,' I was figuring out how to write a book along with writing the book. Now I think I've kind of, sort of figured out how to write a book a little bit better. But the process remains not that different - slow; laborious; tiny, incremental progress each day, punctuated by feelings of despair and self-loathing.
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As far as advice, that will be in my next book, my next collection. I certainly never like to instruct anyone, but just say as I feel. That's the same as advice, isn't it?
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There's a market for mysteries for adults. That feeling of opening a book and delving inside and not coming out until you've closed the book.
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For me, any book I'm writing is also a chance to get in and research and read and learn things that I maybe only knew a little bit about before.
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I was raised in Harlem. I never found a book that took place in Harlem. I never had a church like mine in a book. I never had people like the people I knew. People who could not find their lives in books and celebrated felt bad about themselves. I needed to write to include the lives of these young people.
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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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If you take a good look at the book [ Stock Photographs], it's largely a portrait gallery of faces - faces that I found dramatic. And some of those turned out to be reasonably dramatic photographs. But that's all it is, I think.
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Because each book has its own special perfume.
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The first black girl book I fell in love with was most likely 'Please, Puppy, Please' by Spike Lee and Tonya Lee.
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I had tried writing novels for many years, and they always escaped me. For a long time, I thought, 'It's just not in me to write a novel. It's not something I'm able to do.' It seemed like everything I wrote naturally ended at the bottom of page three. A picture book, three pages; an essay, three pages.
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I don't think money can be understood through a lens limited to economics. And most books about money tell you the history of money, the instrument. But money is also an idea, one that we exchange to survive.
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I always have a book that I use that somehow inspires my novels.
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I didn't and don't go to Internet for any business purposes. The book sales for me by this point are way beyond any influence I might have, positively, or others might have, negatively.
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I have children, and this notion - that there might be a single book that introduces children to literature - terrifies me. But you could do worse than Mary Norton's 'The Borrowers.' I loved it as a kid, and my kids love it, too.
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I don't think there was a particular book that made me want to write. They all did. I always wanted to write.
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Well, I was a big fan of the book and therein a huge fan of the girl Precious. And so I felt like I knew this girl. I felt like I'd grown up alongside her. I felt like she was in my family. She was my friend and she was like people I didn't want to be friends with.
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If somebody writes a book and doesn't care for the survival of that book, he's an imbecile.
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Every book I write, the media just keeps punching me in the face.
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I've found that the most engaging and satisfying author events I've done are with other people, where the conversation is spontaneous. I think that is by far the better way to introduce and promote a book.
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Oh how I wish I could be as obsessive as Carrie from 'Homeland' when I'm writing a book! That would save me a lot of trouble during the revision process.
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I never sell a book. I sell myself. And the way to sell yourself is to be an instrument of love.
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We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about A.D. 80, two full generations before the date between 130 and 150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today.
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At 20 and 30, we are like travelers in a foreign country, reading the guide book to learn how to behave, to learn when the post office is open. Trivia looms important; critical issues fade into a pastel background, unrecognized.
