Salman Rushdie Quotes

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

After a while, you start to realize that you should write a book you would want to read. I try to write a book I would enjoy.

The first book you write because of the way it makes you feel. The second one you can't help but wonder how it's going to make the reader feel.

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.

I think I settled on the title before I ever wrote the book.

I was swimming in my swimming pool when 'The Secret Lovers' popped entire into my head. I got out, dried off, went upstairs, and finished the book in about 50 days.

You write, hoping to write a good book; that's it.

I wouldn't like to be a character in one of my books!

When I'm the one who sits down and looks at the blank page and writes it out all the way, then I'll call it my script.

I think I've written 40 books, and none of them have been heavy on action. I'm an introspective person.

I enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy the experience of getting thoughts and ideas and plots and characters organised into this narrative framework.

The best ideas are those that really affect me emotionally - those are the ones you never forget. You think to yourself, 'I want to write that book', for years; those are the ideas that I love to work with, and 'The Bone Garden' was one of them.

My books start almost before I realise it. Once in a while, some accident causes an idea to rise to the surface and say: 'now.'

What I wanted in life always was to write something as good as 'Pinocchio.' I wanted to write. I wanted to evolve. I wanted to grow.

I write characters and stories that move me, and I write from the heart.

I try to write the kind of books I like to read.

When I write, I get glimpses into future novels.

What I do is write, and I try to write as closely as I can into what I call 'the mystery.'

When I am writing a story it feels as real as the life I am experiencing off the page. It's an emotional illusion, I guess.

Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o'clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that's enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue.

It's that drama that drives authors, you know.

My books come to me in images, and sometimes the image is at the beginning of the book, and sometimes it's simply a flash somewhere in the middle.

I was sitting in the toilet and I was by myself. I was tired of playing with the roller, so I said I'd better write a book.

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

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.