Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes

Authors want their names down in history; I want to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney.

I don't aspire at present to be king of the hill in American literature.

I wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. If your name is in the Library of Congress, you're immortal.

Winning the second Pulitzer firmly places me in conversation with this culture.

I haven't been the kind of writer about whom book-length academic studies have been written.

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.

The bewildering success of my books continues to surprise me.

It seemed impossible that a scrappy book like 'Goon Squad' could win an award like that. It's such an iconic honor. I think what the Pulitzer means to me is that I'll need to work very, very hard to try to live up to it.

Saul Bellow never took my advice when he was my friend.

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

Being published is a bit like being entered into a race you don't even want to run, but, once running, can't help but not want to lose.

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.

Making the best-seller list is a big deal; it's like being nominated for an Oscar. Hitting No. 1 is like actually winning the award. It's very gratifying.

If I can hit No. 1 on the 'New York Times' best-seller list, I'm thinking of having the entire list tattooed on my body somewhere. It would be fabulous.

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.

It took seven years from the day I decided I wanted to write fiction to actually getting a book published.

When I got my very first phone call that I'd hit the 'New York Times' list, I had a small rush of 'I've made it!' But the next morning, it occurred to me I didn't know what it was, so I called my agent and asked what being a 'New York Times' bestselling author really meant. He informed me that I was now a thousand pound gorilla.

I've been very lucky with prizes. But the thing about prizes is that, when you talk about a prize-winning author, you can be talking about one that is well-regarded but doesn't sell any books.

I'm not in the Shakespeare stakes. I have no ambition.

Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.

The Booker Prize is a big, popular prize for big, popular books, and that's the way it should be.

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

I was always ambitious - not to make money: to be published.

Every author really wants to have letters printed in the papers. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels.

Writers are not celebrities, so you don't expect to walk down the street and hear, 'Oh my God, there's Sylvia Day.' You prefer to be anonymous.