Janet Mock Quotes

Bad stories are written about me because the press knows they can make me into a weeping dog and few people will object.

The paramedic called the press and sold me like a loaf of bread. This was news, and he wanted to be the one to report it.

When we are out there selling a new picture, when did it become part of the deal that you have to sell the family? To use the juicy part of your life to get attention? I'm not blaming the reporters. It's the system.

In journalism, as in politics, other people's lives are a currency to be bartered on behalf of notoriety and influence.

There are an awful lot of people making lots of money promoting fear. Their hot microphones have flamethrowers.

I feel like I can't be sick without some story being made up or some photos being sold a month later.

I'm not for the publicity stunts. Leave my son out of the publicity stunts.

Octomom was media-created.

A book tour is, first and foremost, an exercise in humility.

I thought to myself, 'why not write a bestseller?' In the first place, more people buy them and more people read them. You make more money and it doesn’t take any more time to write a bestseller than it does to write a book nobody buys.

I was reluctant to talk about my kids on the blog. I kept telling myself, "People aren't coming here for stories about your kids. They want to hear about the upcoming books, writing advice, conventions..."

I'm really bad at describing my books. Journalists like to have things like "It's The Terminator Meets the Seven Dwarfs." And I can't do that with my books. If I could, I probably wouldn't write them.

Always I'm working on some of book. That's the way I make a living.

A new biography of Madonna came out last week, and apparently the biography lists all the men she's slept with. The book is apparently called the Manhattan Telephone Directory.

Publishing is the final step in making a book; if I was afraid to publish one, I wouldn't write it in the first place.

Publishers don't nurse you; they buy and sell you.

I sometimes get up at night when I can't sleep and walk down into my library and open one of my books and read a paragraph and say, 'My God, did I write that?

The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.

I was highly aware, in writing [the book] ROOM, that there are unsavoury aspects to our interest in such cases, and I thought it was rather honester to include discussion of media representation in the novel itself than to cling to the high moral ground by merely avoiding scenes of voyeurism, for instance.

Twenty years ago, when I started writing, I didn't define myself as an African-American writer. And then you write books and you're focused on what's inside your books, and that kind of term is generally used on the outside, by the critical establishment.

The best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out. Three years to build a reputation, build a permission asset, build a blog, build a following, build credibility and build the connections you'll need later.

I have students that I tell, "If your book doesn't sell or you can't publish it, write another book. Quit sitting around." The publishing world is a business, but it's not any big deal. An editor is not your guru. Your agent is not your guru.

I decided to write the book to open the eyes of the people of how corrupt John D. Rockefeller company was and the unfair ways he used to be successful. I wanted the people to know the truth about the Standard Oil Company.

I am so glad I was writing while on my last book tour, which was really meta, but I think a fascinating look inside the reality of what that whole madness is about.

I don't hire any companies or ask any of my friends to write reviews for me on Amazon when I have a book come out so they can drive up my ratings on Amazon. I don't have a publicist.