Erik Larson Quotes

Anyone who wants simple, pat stories should buy another author's product. The real universe ain't that way, and neither are my fictive ones.

I think I'm better at playing difficult than I am at being normal.

'Saw' is like a big jigsaw puzzle. When you put a jigsaw puzzle together, you put the bottom left corner together first, and then you find yourself working on the upper right corner... That's the way 'Saw' plays out.

My style is ambiguous and lucid. I wish to be signified but not summed up. I don't want to have to go over the top each time.

If it were easy, it would have no value.

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.

Repetitiveness is one of the things that's most difficult to get away from in genre pictures, because people come specifically to see certain kinds of things but get disappointed if they're presented in the same way. So to try to find a new way to show old stuff is always the challenge.

It's hard to point to any single inspiration for 'iZombie' since, in actuality, it's made up from elements inspired by all kinds of different thing all mashed up together.

I'm normally drawn to something I haven't done and seen before.

I surround myself with bizarre people. They're more fun to write about.

Any actor is happy to be involved with something that's challenging, controversial, and not easily palatable. Things that are too dumbed down or easy to swallow are uninteresting... It's good when people have such a polarizing response.

Every time I write a new book, I want to push myself to try something different.

How many times can you put together 26 different stories without running out?

Each person is an enigma. You're a puzzle not only to yourself but also to everyone else, and the great mystery of our time is how we penetrate this puzzle.

So the characters that I choose, I like to make sure that they have depth and that they have some sort of bite. It's more fun.

If you like vanilla, you're not going to like 'Breaking Bad' - you need to like a specific flavor that is unusual, that is different, that takes risks.

I definitely like a little bit of darkness, a little edge. I get a little bored when things are maybe too simple or too... expected.

I would rather read a poorly structured story that has fresh ideas than a tightly structured one with cliches.

To me acting is like a jigsaw puzzle. The jigsaw puzzle is of the sky and all the pieces are blue. Out of this you have to create a human being and put it together.

I prefer to break new ground, but it gets harder and harder with the territory that's already been walked on.

Neil Gaiman is a star. He constructs stories like some demented cook might make a wedding cake, building layer upon layer, including all kinds of sweet and sour in the mix.

I started writing because I saw such a huge lack of complex stories about the inner city.

You're only reduced to a cliche if you don't humanize a character.

It's so difficult to actually come up with ideas that you really fall in love with, you know? That's the most difficult thing about filmmaking - and that's my main challenge in life.