Shaun Tan Quotes

For me, writing post-apocalyptic novels isn't so much about exploding helicopters and fifty-megaton doomsday bombs as it is about the pleasure of dealing with the best of everything that makes us human: cleverness, grit, loyalty, and self-sacrifice.

In the present world, this technological, psychotic, politicised, nonsensical world, you have to believe that the good guys are going to win! That evil will be banished somehow!

I don't think kids have a problem reading books meant for adults; the problem is on the other side of the fence, a misconception of what one kind of literature is 'supposed' to be, perceived to be, as opposed to another: if it's for kids, it can't be any good; it's got to have been dumbed down and/or sweetened up.

'I Am Legend' was a rich, emotional experience where you could be scared and cry, and there's some wish fulfilment.

That larger story in 'Salvage the Bones' is just about survival, and I think that, in the end, there are things about this novel and about these characters' experiences that make their stories universal stories.

I like those stories that capture the brutality of life, but there's still some kind of melancholy romance.

Wherever my story takes me, however dark and difficult the theme, there is always some hope and redemption, not because readers like happy endings, but because I am an optimist at heart.

One of my favorite books [The Stand] of all time. I grew up reading it.

Out of evil can come great good.

When I see kids standing next to their mothers at book signings, clutching a copy of 'Forever,' I know what's coming. They'll say to me, 'How old do I have to be to read this?' hoping I'll give them permission. But I can't do that.

My advice is this. For Christ's sake, don't write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 years old, because the kids who read who are 12 years old are reading books for adults. I read all of the James Bond books when I was about 11, which was approximately the right time to read James Bond books.

Our task, in the aftermath of September 11, was and continues to be the transformation of the effects of evil into something beautiful and good.

There is one good thing about reaching the bottom. When you get there, there's nothing left to do but fight your way back up or die.

So much of Judaism is about suffering, survival, and pathos.

Evil has always been there; it's always a part of us. Evil is no big surprise. But what about the people who gave freely, who stood up for human dignity? Even in the most extreme and terrible situations, these acts of dignity existed. And for me, that is the banality of good.

All I can say is in the world of 'The Americans,' like in life, if you're not dead, there's hope.

I think that young readers have very strong stomachs.

I try to weigh out the dark and the light. They were both very real aspects of my Dad. To me, the good and the healing and the light outweigh the dark so much, and that's why I focus on the good.

'The Road' reminds me of Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath.'

With 'Daud,' basically, I wanted to make a very 'Mad Max' kind of a film: that was my original intention.

I genuinely believe that being on death row for 22 years ultimately saved my life. It was the greatest adventure of my life, and I survived it.

I don't know if God is a sports fan or not, but I do know this: He loves a good comeback.

To me, the darkest film ever made and the film, to me, that's the darkest picture in the human humanity's soul is 'Pretty Woman.'

The things that interest me are less to do with perhaps finding myself and more to do with surviving and mercy and forgiveness.

I cannot, will not, withhold from my young readers the harsh realities of human hunger and suffering and loss, but neither will I neglect to plant that stubborn seed of hope that has enabled our race to outlast wars and famines and the destruction of death.