Charles Palliser Quotes

The hardest part is not to repeat yourself. I don't really believe my core obsessions are going to change, but you need to look for ways to express them that are different. The main reason for doing that is not to bore yourself, and obviously, I don't want to bore readers.

When I try to write I try to write something different every time. That's the challenge.

Life would be much easier if I just wrote the same book over and over again. But I'm not interested in doing that.

I fear becoming formulaic. Some of my books are.

I didn't want to write the same book over and over.

I don't write the same book twice.

Good literature can be created only with something that is different from literature.

Generally what I produce is new. Of course, they are often variations on the same subject.

Every time I write a new book, I want to push myself to try something different.

The element of surprise is the most important thing and what keeps me interested in writing. I can feel it if I've written that predictable or boring line, and I will carry that around with me all day.

If you know everything, it keeps you from writing. You don't want a story to burn you out instead of surprising you.

For me, the source material can come from anywhere. It can be a poem, it can be a dream, it can be a movie, as long as the end part of it is interesting - that's what it's about for me.

As authors, we know that it is very difficult to unleash one's creativity.

I'm constantly creating and writing.

If a writer stops observing, he is finished.

Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

I try not to repeat a story. I try not to repeat an emotion. I want it to be all sort of new for the viewers and to challenge myself as a writer, so there's always pressure. What else can you come up with?

I prefer writing originals.

I wanted each of my books to be very different from the others, each to be special and uncategorizable, and I knew I could only do that a few times before I was in danger of repeating myself.

To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating one's own creativity - that's a much tougher matter.

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

In 25 years of writing novels, I've never had anything that felt like writer's block.