Salman Rushdie Quotes

I spend about a year between novels.

I take a very long time to write my books - from five to ten years.

I really have reached a point where I can write a book about all of this.

I don't think there's a difference between writing for a newspaper or magazine and doing a chapter in a book.

Typically, a book takes me about a year to write.

I just wrote a book, but don't go out and buy it yet, because I don't think it's finished yet.

I'm not a writer who refuses to talk about a book until I've finished.

You write a lot of books; you hope you get better.

I've never actually even contemplated writing a book or having a book.

I started out as a novelist and wrote several novels before deciding to publish one, and I fully intend to go back to the form.

I'm working with published authors and some very young undergraduates and lots of people in between. They are lovely people, and they can write.

I don't read books regularly, because I'm always writing them. I've written 30 books, thousands of pages.

An author writes a book, and that's the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

There are many challenges I face while working on a book. Working within deadlines and schedules is certainly one of the bigger ones for me. I want to create the best possible book I can for my readers with words and pictures - and that takes time to get it just right.

Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.

Some people play the piano, some do Sudoku, some watch television, some people go out to dinner parties. I write books.

I try not to worry about rewriting books that worked well the first time. I'm too busy writing new books to worry about things that are already in print.

I often reread books I have written.

Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.

I haven't done a book for about 3 or 4 years now.

Everyone wants to write a book. Very few people are able to do it.

When I am working on an epic-length book, the writing process is fairly long. It takes from four to five years to get through all the drafts. The book is done when I am exhausted.

Somewhere along the line, I realized that I liked telling stories, and I decided that I would try writing. Ten years later, I finally got a book published. It was hard. I had no skills. I knew nothing about the business of getting published. So I had to keep working at it.

I think with one exception I've never changed an opening sentence after a book was completed.

A novelist can never be his own reader, except when he is ridding his manuscript of syntax errors, repetitions, or the occasional superfluous paragraph.