Steve Valentine Quotes

I actually have a young readers' series that I wanna do, kind of in the same lane as a Harry Potter or Narnia or Twilight. I want to write stuff like that.

I was a huge bookworm as a kid, and you could usually find me reading something with a dragon on its cover.

The deeper I go into mythology, the more I find. I originally did five 'Percy Jackson' books. I thought that would cover Greek mythology and I couldn't have been more wrong. It's ever-expanding.

If I have to pick one story that most influenced 'The Hunger Games,' it would be the Greek myth of Theseus, which I read when I was about 8 years old. In punishment for past deeds, Athens periodically had to send seven youths and seven maidens to a labyrinth. In the maze was this Minotaur, and it would eat them.

My first memory of the public library is of lugging home a volume of Norse myths as heavy as a thunder-god's hammer.

Was not from a mixture of two races that the Titans sprang?

Actually, I love mythology. When I was a kid I was obsessed with myth and I wanted to be a mythologist when I grew up. Then I realized I really just like stories.

The first author I remember being obsessed by, actually realizing 'I like the way he writes and I like the way he tells stories,' was C.S. Lewis and the 'Narnia' books.

If you take 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' as books, one is written for children, and one is an adult's book.

I love Greek mythology, I love gladiators, I love war stuff.

Fairy-tales are nice.

I didn't study Greek mythology in school and I wish I had.

Edward Eager wrote a series of children's books that are in danger of being forgotten. But they're divine: stories about ordinary kids who stumble on magical things - a coin, a lake, a book, a thyme garden, a well. The magic changes them, they try to change the magic, the magic moves on.

I loved the idea of a book of fairytales meant especially for peculiar children, and I love even more the idea of making that fictional book real.

I first read 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' when I was a kid. And I think it was read to me. Me and my sister both had a copy and loved the books.

I was born to play Hercules. I have loved and honored the mythology over the years - since I was a kid. When I first broke into Hollywood, 'Hercules' was one of the movies that I - not chased, because I didn't have the power to chase anything - but always had in the back of my mind.

After finishing 'The Book of Life,' I needed a bit of a break from the Bishops and de Clermonts. Honestly, I wasn't sure when - or even if! - they would capture all of my attention again.

I love reading all the mythological stories. I was brought up on them.

'Daughter of Smoke and Bone' is one of my all-time top YA fantasy trilogies, so I was a little nervous about reading 'Strange the Dreamer.' Of course, I shouldn't have been worried because Laini Taylor immediately grabbed me by the proverbial lapels and refused to let me go.

I couldn't resist painting Orpheus and Charon on the River Styx. There was something strangely intriguing about seeing Orpheus playing his lyre as he is being shuttled across the river.

I read 'The Hobbit' when I was twenty and first reading modern science fiction and fantasy. I followed it up with 'The Lord of the Rings,' which I still reread from time to time, but of the lot of it, I prefer 'The Hobbit.'

For a whole year in elementary school, when the class marched down to the school library every week, I would refuse to return my book. I would just check it out again and again. Every week. For a whole year. The object of my fourth-grade filibuster was 'D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths.'

The real Amazons were long believed to be purely imaginary. They were the mythical warrior women who were the archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Every Greek hero or champion, from Hercules to Theseus and Achilles, had to prove his mettle by fighting a powerful warrior queen.

I love mythic stuff. I love playing with gods, I love playing with myths. A lot of it has to do with that they're the basic places stories come from. They're the clay that you make the bricks out of.