Gabrielle Zevin Quotes

I wasn't sitting around years ago thinking, 'I really want to write a novel.'

Writers always say, 'I always knew I wanted to be a writer; when I was a three-month-old foetus a pen formed in my hand and I began to scratch my first story on the inside of my mother's womb.' I started later, in my early twenties.

My son had toyed with the idea of writing and trying to write a little bit, so that kind of gave me the bug to write also.

The best ideas are those that really affect me emotionally - those are the ones you never forget. You think to yourself, 'I want to write that book', for years; those are the ideas that I love to work with, and 'The Bone Garden' was one of them.

I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that I would like to write something like that someday.

I don't think I knew I would be a writer. I wanted to become a writer, and I tried to write.

I still write the occasional short story, and poked at a novel once, but it's just not what I want to do.

Suddenly, the idea of writing a book was like coming home. I didn't tell anyone except my wife, Clare. I just began.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

I knew that I wanted to be a writer even before I knew exactly what being a writer entailed.

I'm not sure if I always wanted to be a writer, but I was always writing.

Everyone thinks they're going to write one book of poems or one novel.

I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.

I saw novelists as being admirable people and I thought... I thought... maybe, one day, I could be one of them.

Of course I planned to write the Great American Novel; that lasted about a week, at which point I decided I had nothing to say that could possibly qualify. So I wrote a romance instead.

I set out to write a screenplay but, since my early 20s, had dreamed of writing a novel.

I wanted nothing less than to be a fiction writer when I was a kid. If you had told me I would be an artist or novelist when I grew up, I would have laughed in your face.

I remember all the way back in high school thinking about writing books. And, in fact, I've written a lot of stories. I've got dozens of stories I've written that no one's ever seen.

As an author, I've never forgotten how to daydream.

I'm still surprised to be an author. I wonder what I'll write next?

I never intended to become a writer.

If you think about becoming a writer, that's just really one of the big dreams I had. It's really important to have those dreams and pursue your passions.

I used to tell my writing students that they must write the books they wished they could come upon - because then the books they hungered and thirsted for would exist.

I don't think there was a particular book that made me want to write. They all did. I always wanted to write.

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.