Chris Pavone Quotes

I was a 'learn by doing' writer - I never took any formal writing classes. So it took a long time to figure things out and find my voice.

The books are like children in that having written one doesn't make writing the next one any easier, because it's a new set of problems and a new set of challenges with each one, and having dealt with one before means that you now know how to do it.

In my early twenties, that's when I really began to write. Before that, I was too busy working, keeping myself going.

I've never been much of a craftsman, in an educated way. But I think just the experience of writing makes the avenues I follow a little more efficient in some ways. At the same time, when you're young, you're a little more fearless, and there's less of an internal critic.

One of the things you get to do as a writer is that you get to learn new stuff all the time, and I hope that I'm a better writer when I'm 70 than I was when I was 30. That's one of the great things about a literary career.

I took my first creative writing class when I was 24, then went onto to get a graduate degree in poetry. I've sort of never looked back from there.

I don't think many of us launched ourselves into the world of writing books fully formed.

I personally feel I still have so much to learn as a writer; each novel is better than the one before, just because I'm getting better at it.

Were there stories I wrote along the way that were terrible clinkers? God, yes. But they were all a product of their time, and I did the best I could.

Everyone has a certain amount of bad writing to get out of their system.

I guess I feel it's funny to be looked to for advice on writing when I am still taking in so much from other people.

If writers learn more from their books than do readers, perhaps I may have begun to learn.

Working with great writers can be humbling and frightening, but it can also change you for good, forever.

I was never born to write. I was taught to write. And I am still being taught to write.

I have grown in my writing and I care about it now and I know how important it is to write stuff.

I guess you could say I've been writing all my life.

I reached a point where I'd watched enough directors do the job that I felt I understood it. And it's not that I'm a slow learner and it took me this long; I also was enjoying writing, and I still enjoy writing - I get tremendous satisfaction out of the writing end of it.

When I was 19 years old, I wrote my first book. I took a computer science class, and the book was garbage. I thought I could write a better one, so I did.

Who learns most from a good book is the author.

Usually a feeling of disappointment follows the book, because what I hoped to write is not what I actually accomplished. However, it becomes a motivation to write the next book.

The desire to write grows with writing.

I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.

I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen.

Each novel is harder than its predecessor because I must work harder at not repeating myself. However, I enjoy the challenge. This is the greatest job in the world.

I have learned many things in the 30 years that I have been writing.