Jesse Andrews Quotes

When I see things in the world that leap out at me, I want to make use of them in fiction. Maybe every writer does that. It just depends on what you claim or appropriate as yours.

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

I have no favourite genre or style but treat each novel with the same care, imagination and craftsmanship. It's as difficult to write a crime or a children's novel with a touch of style and grace as it is a literary novel.

Though my stories aren't autobiographical, I do sometimes use things from my life.

I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.

I have to write what I can write, and writing the text of a picture book is like walking a tightrope, if you ramble off... As my friend Julius Lester says, 'A picture book is the essence of an experience.'

I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

I don't read much nonfiction because the nonfiction I do read always seems to be so badly written. What I enjoy about fiction - the great gift of fiction - is that it gives language an opportunity to happen.

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building.

I come from a prose background. I come from short story background, and that led me into novels.

My books aren't autobiographical.

Writing can be fun. I think the challenge is to convey interesting things in accessible ways, and that's what I aim to do in books.

I enjoy both TV writing and novel writing, and they are very similar. The goal is to entertain and amuse the audience, and I subscribe to this P.G. Wodehouse piece of advice: "Try to give pleasure with every sentence."

The more fiction you read and write, the more you'll find your paragraphs forming on their own.

I have also led you astray by talking of technique as if it were something that could be separated from the rest of the story. Technique can't operate at all, of course, except on believable material.

When I am writing fiction, I believe I am much better organized, more methodical - one has to be when writing a novel. Writing poetry is a state of free float.

The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.

I think I've written 40 books, and none of them have been heavy on action. I'm an introspective person.

I sort of love reading the scripts and going, 'Oh wow, what a great idea. I never would have thought of that.'

You have to have heart's passion to write a novel.

I would like to write a book that wasn't so violent and weird, but I just don't think I can do that with my talent. I don't think it would come off.

I write novels and other things.

Every now and then I'll do little things, a short story or something, that doesn't have any fantastical elements, but mostly I like the power of playing God and I like to imagine things.

The move to creating stories was a natural progression for me, but the most pivotal time was probably in 6th grade: That year, a friend introduced me to the stories of Ray Bradbury, and a student teacher introduced me to creative writing.

Stephen King has inspired me with his humor and honesty, and his admonition that the author's job is to tell the truth.