Robert Kurson Quotes

I made a deliberate choice to write something people would enjoy, not knock people out with 'Boy, he can really put a clause together!'

I don't read books on how to write screenplays just because I'm stubborn. So it's all sort of made up.

I don't have a style. I just try to write what the story demands.

I wrote two plotted books, got some of the fundamentals of storytelling down, then... it's sort of like taking the training wheels off, trying to write a book that's fun in the same way without relying on quite such mechanical or external beats.

I love to write what I see and what I do and what I experience, and I like to see if people can relate to that. I don't know if I am as good at making up a story in my head that has no truth to it, so that is a challenge for me.

I write as well as I can. I'm a journalist at heart, so it's the story that matters.

My job is to put words together and tell a story. If that doesn't work for you, it's not a war crime.

The same tools that make any writer good, plus a cheerful willingness to suspend belief.

If you have some natural talent and really want to write, you should read the books of someone who's very successful in your genre. You don't want to plagiarize, but you want to learn from that author.

I think anyone can write about anything that they have knowledge of and exposure to.

I never took a writing class.

I write the story as it comes to me - YA is my natural voice, not a conscious choice.

I think it's a very bad idea for someone to start writing for a readership.

The story was such that I couldn't make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning. I could have, but I didn't want to. So, it isn't the most graceful way of writing a story. This new story is, I think, is pretty good stuff. I'm pleased with it anyway.

I write easily, let's put it that way. And in a novel particularly, the characters take over. And they tell me what to say and they tell me what they're doing. And I'm a third of the way into a novel and then I just let the characters finish it for me.

When the narrative itself starts knocking on the glassed-in box that was your prescription for how you were going to write this novel... you have to listen to it.

I am not much of a researcher as a novelist; I write mainly from experience.

The process of composition, messing around with paragraphs and trying to make really good prose, is hardwired into my personality.

I love to write. I used to be a math teacher. And I like the idea that other people could write about the same subjects, but no one would write it just the way I do. It's very individual: a child could write the same story as somebody else, but it wouldn't come out the same.

I'm not a writer. I think I can write short stories and poetry, but film writing, brilliant film writing, is a talent - you can't just do it like that.

I did no research on 'The Best Man.' That was something that came out from my own head.

Very few of my characters are based on people I've known. It is too constricting.

For me as a writer, the story has always taken precedence over everything else. I have never sat down to write with broad, sweeping ideas in mind, and certainly never with a specific agenda.

I know I'm really good at writing for the theater. I can deny it all I want. Other people can fight me on it. It doesn't really matter. It's the thing I happen to know is my gift.

I'm not as good a writer as I'd like to be; therefore, I like to use images to tell stories.