Hilton Als Quotes

Give me a story which I connect with and then I am going to do it.

That's what writing is all about, after all, making others see what you have put down on the page and believing that it does, or could, exist and you want to go there.

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

I enjoy receiving and giving realistic fiction, for both children and adults, with strong characters, beautiful language, and humane visions.

I'm always saying that my books are not autobiographical because they're not. I can't choose any one scene and say, 'Oh, this is exactly what happened to me!' I just use little snippets of things as a starting point!

When I read good stories, I want to write good stories too.

Most fiction comes from your experience.

I think that one of the things you have to do to become a storyteller is spend a lot of time reading stories.

I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.

I think that, anybody with a strong will to tell a story, then that is fantastic. I think it's fantastic. I think sometimes people have what I'll call an ulterior motive with a story.

I guess I'm just inspired to tell stories.

My writing could be the most beautiful or important piece of prose, but it means nothing if it's boring, if people aren't listening or reading. I think transporting someone, putting them in a story for a few hours, taking them out of their worlds, is what I always strive to do.

Things happen to all of us. The writer's job is to get you interested.

I think one of the reasons that I like fiction versus nonfiction is that I myself can kind of disappear from the story.

Novels are such mysterious and amorphous and tender things.

You're a reader as well as a writer, so write what you'd want to read.

Every once in a while I feel the tremendous force of the novel. But it does not stay with me.

For me, literature is a complex game, both mental and concrete, which is acted out in a physical manner on the page.

I never think of an entire book at once. I always just start with a very small idea. In 'Holes,' I just began with the setting; a juvenile correctional facility located in the Texas desert. Then I slowly make up the story, and rewrite it several times, and each time I rewrite it, I get new ideas, and change the old ideas around.

What's funny about that is when I was writing Twilight just for myself and not thinking of it as a book, I was not thinking about publishing, and yet at the same time I was casting it in my head. Because when I read books, I see them very visually.

Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.

Even the crudest, most derivative novel is an expression of the author's hopes and fears and ideas about good and evil.

People sometimes ask who I would cast in my books and I never have any idea. I don't think I could ever write a book thinking of it as a movie the whole time. This would be like building a house and filling it with furniture just so you could have blueprints.

Fiction is a lie that is told in the service of truth.

I tell stories. Because I believe you can do things that joke tellers can't do, and that is, bring your audience along.