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The irritating question they ask us -- us being writers -- is: "Where do you get your ideas?"

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People talk about books that write themselves, and it's a lie. Books don't write themselves. It takes thought and research and backache and notes and ...more

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The irritating question they ask us -- us being writers -- is: "Where do you get your i

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As we write we summon little demons.

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Richard put away the Narnia books, convinced, sadly, that they were an allegory; that an author (whom he had trusted) had been attempting to slip some...more

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Television and cinema were all very well, but these stories happened to other people. The stories I found in books happened inside my head. I was, in ...more

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I wanted stories, and I wanted them always, and I wanted the experience that only fiction could give me: I wanted to be inside them.

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This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be un...more

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Fictions are merely frozen dreams, linked images with some semblance of structure. They are not to be trusted, no more than the people who create them...more

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We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as be...more

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You’re as plain as the nose on your face,” said Mr. Pennyworth. “And your nose is remarkably obvious. As is the rest of your face, young man. As are y...more

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You aren't allowed out of the graveyard -it's aren't, by the way, not amn't, not these days-because it's only in the graveyard that we can keep you sa...more

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I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous...more

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Can't say I've ever been too fond of beginnings, myself. Messy little things. Give me a good ending anytime. You know where you are with an ending.

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In Sarasota, Florida, Stephen King reminded me of the joy of just writing every day.