Frank McCourt Quotes

I'm always surprised when large numbers of people buy my books.

When 'The Shadow of the Wind' became a success I had already been a working writer, I'd been through the ups and downs, I'd seen how it worked.

Jerry and I hoped that it would be a popular bestseller.

I never set out to do this - getting to No. 1 in the 'New York Times' bestseller list wasn't even a pipedream.

I'm very lucky. I'm very fortunate that my books have never gone out of print - none of them.

On the strength of Vonnegut's reputation, 'Breakfast of Champions' spent a year on the best-seller lists, proving that he could indeed publish anything and make money.

The bewildering success of my books continues to surprise me.

My books have occasionally been of mixed success. It's not like I have gone from triumph to triumph. I have had a couple of books do very, very well and a couple do very, very badly.

I didn't make 'The New York Times' bestseller list until 'Charmed Thirds,' and then again for 'Fourth Comings.' It gave me a certain validation, and it certainly helps position me for future books, but it's not something I think about on a daily basis.

Heinlein never had a best-seller. Even, I think, with Stranger in a Strange Land, I don't think it was actually on the New York Times best seller list.

The idea is to become a best-selling author first and then the rest of my books will be slam dunks.

B is for bestseller.

I had always presumed that my first book would be published, but I never dreamt that I would write 15 bestsellers and have this wonderful life in America that I have entirely built for myself.

After a while, if you're a writer, you want to start appearing in the bookstores of the place you're living in.

I have high hopes for Renee Ballard's literary life, and it can't start out better than the top of 'USA TODAY''s best-seller list.

Every time I had a book come out, I'm like, 'Is it going to be number one?'

I honestly thought I probably did sell 100 million books. That doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me.

I published 'Rules of Civility' while I was still working. It became a best seller. I was working on this book, and then I decided to retire.

I don't think about being famous, really. Being an author, I don't generally get stopped as I walk down the street. It's not like being a movie star.

When I settled to writing seriously, which would be in my 30s, I did expect to be published eventually, but my aspirations weren't very high. A published book and a few appreciative readers was my idea of heaven.

I'd only been in the business three or four years, but I told myself that someday I'd like to be Mort Janklow.

I had no idea I'd end up writing four books when I completed 'Mortal Engines.' I didn't even think it would find a publisher.

How lucky am I? Quite often I speak at book festivals, and people ask me how I got published. There's people who have been working on a book for as long as ten years, and I feel like such a cow.

There are writers who go their whole lives and never hit that No. 1 spot.

My first book was the most successful debut novel in the U.K. ever and every one of my books has reached number one in the U.K. Clearly the British know brilliance when they see it.