Jean M. Auel Quotes

There's actually nothing interesting about me except what I write.

I just write the books that I think I would want to read.

Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.

What I'm trying to do is to write a story. If you take something from it, that's wonderful; if you don't, that's wonderful as well.

The only advice I can give to aspiring writers is to write the book that you would want to read, and hope other people agree.

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

I throw everything I have into whatever story I'm writing - and so there's something immensely gratifying about finishing one piece and then starting fresh with a new setting, time period and cast of characters, getting to see the world through a completely different lens each time.

I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.

I think one of the keys to better writing is releasing all of your ideas and to not be afraid. Dream big. This could be the greatest novel in the world you know.

I write what I'm interested in.

If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it.

I write what I'd like to read and just hope that, along the way, others might like to read them, too.

When I started writing fiction, I knew how good it was immediately.

Literature for me isn't a workaday job, but something which involves desires, dreams and fantasy.

I had no real idea I was going to become a writer. It was just a game for me. I just liked pretending, daydreaming and imagining.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

If somebody gave you several thousand dollars and nothin' to do but write, would you be a writer then? Would you tell your stories, your family's stories, then?

I don't really think about genre. I like to write books that I'd love to read myself.

I feel, as an artist, it's important for me to write, and that's a big part of what my journey is - being able to write my stories and talk about stuff.

Anything that feels like good characters, I am excited to do whether I write it or not. But if I don't find it in the world, I will write it myself.

Being a writer is great because you get to come up with stuff.

I'm always thinking about stories and ideas, and I have a few I'd like to actively pursue, but as much as I love them, I love the process of creation, and I want to go on and create things for myself, and create new things.

For the last few years, I've enjoyed writing my own stuff since studying creative writing at school, and as I've grown up, I've realised how much I enjoy escaping into a world that I've created myself. So I've kept that up as a hobby.

My experience of fiction was, in the beginning, so exploratory. I wasn't sitting down to a desk at Yaddo with a month, thinking I have to have a draft of a novel.

It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.'