David B. Coe Quotes

As we Wizards go, I'm pretty harmless.

There's a special gut-check moment the first time you write a scene in which somebody casts a spell.

Short stories are fiction's R & D department, and failed or less-than-conclusive experiments are not just to be expected but to be hoped for.

I am a fan of magic and fantasy, particularly when it's grounded in reality.

When you talk about fantasy, the usual problem is that whilst you've got the world of imagination, there are no controlling forces.

Writing about magic is harder than writing about spies because you're dealing with something that doesn't really exist.

I was always interested in enchantment and magicians and still am.

I don't particularly have any magical ambitions, but then, I never did. I just enjoyed the game.

Magic has universal appeal. I don't believe in magic in the way that I describe in my books, but I'd love it to be real.

My understanding of magic is fairly straightforward. Hit enemies with a sword until they’re dead. If they rise again, hit them again. Repeat as necessary. It worked against Set.

Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh", said Hagrid. “Harry — yer a wizard.

That is many poets don't know how to tell a story and they don't have a sense of how to put things in order to tell a story and we thought the poets could learn from fiction writers something about developing a character over time who wasn't just you and also creating a narrative structure.

In the tale proper--where there is no space for development of character or for great profusion and variety of incident--mere construction is, of course, far more imperatively demanded than in the novel.

If there is a connection between Harry Potter and my new novel, it's my interest in characters.

I love being a wizard. Every day is like Disneyland.

My writing has always been what you call 'narrative fiction' in the sense that it's got very strong plots and twists at the end.

As a fiction writer, my favorite tools are my imagination and the peculiar opportunities offered by different points of view.

The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and manipulating characters; the novel is such a wonderfully flexible form.

One reason we love fiction is because stories have a comforting shape. They provide a resolution that's lacking in our regular lives.

A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.

The great pleasure for me in writing short stories is the fierce, elegant challenge.

Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

First of all, writing at best - certainly fiction writing - more and more I think is magic.

A short story is a shard, a sliver, a vignette. It's a biopsy on the human condition but it doesn't have this capacity to think autonomously for itself.

My books are character-driven. They're not driven by the story.