Max Brooks Quotes

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.

Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write.

If I ever wrote a book, people would never believe it.

The best books arise from some ultimate question in the author.

I was always writing the books that I wanted to write, books that demanded to be written at the time. But, like most writers, you start off feeling your way.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm a writer who's writing books, and therefore, I don't want to die. You'd miss the end of the book wouldn't you? You can't die with an unfinished book.

I don't think any novelist should be concerned with literature.

The only other thing which I think is important is: Don't write a book or start a book with the expectation of communicating a message in a very important way.

Once I finished 'Eileen,' I wanted to write more novels. I don't see myself stopping any time soon.

What's the challenge in writing a novel that few people will read? I'm more than happy writing what I do and have no plans to change that.

Books, I don't know what you see in them. I can understand a person reading them, but I can't for the life of me see why people have to write them.

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

I write about what haunts me, and I write the books I myself am dying to read. I love it. I can't think of anything I'd rather do.

I used to teach at the Columbia journalism school, and I would tell my students that every book has to have a sentence that motivates it.

I am sure of this: that no one can write a book which children will like unless he write it for himself first.

When I write, I try to capture one of those pivotal moments. If I succeed, I have shifted the reader's view of the world, just a little. The character is not the only one to experience change. That is my job, shifting perceptions, one story at a time. The trouble is, I don't like writing. But I love having written.

All my friends who wanted to write had got nowhere trying to write the great European novel. So I deliberately steered clear of that and set out to write something story-led.

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

I'm not like some other writers: I have no actual urgent need or desire to add to what's written. You write it; if you're lucky, it's performed, and that's the end of the whole thing.

Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.

I love 'Memory Keeper's Daughter,' but in some ways I think 'The Lake of Dreams' is a stronger book. I was able to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's all you can ever do as a writer. From there on you have no control over it.

I write what I'd like to read and just hope that, along the way, others might like to read them, too.

I really write for people.

I wrote ghost stories because I'd always enjoyed reading them, and they seemed to be fizzling out... I don't take them terribly seriously. It's like a cake, with ingredients.

What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.