Gabrielle Zevin Quotes

Whenever anyone calls me 'The new J..K. Rowling,' I think, 'What's wrong with the old one?'

When 'The Shadow of the Wind' became a success I had already been a working writer, I'd been through the ups and downs, I'd seen how it worked.

There are writers who go their whole lives and never hit that No. 1 spot.

I finished my first novel - it was around 300 pages long - when I was 16. Wrote one more before I got out of high school, then wrote the first Lincoln Perry novel when I was 19. It didn't sell, but I liked the character and I knew the world so I tried what was, in my mind, a sequel. Wrote that when I was 20, and that one made it.

I started submitting stories for publication when I was about 15, but it was many years before I sold anything. I don't make my living writing science fiction, so in that sense, I'm still not a pro.

I never set out to do this - getting to No. 1 in the 'New York Times' bestseller list wasn't even a pipedream.

Writers are not celebrities, so you don't expect to walk down the street and hear, 'Oh my God, there's Sylvia Day.' You prefer to be anonymous.

I was twenty-seven when I began to write seriously, and after two years of rejections, my first book, 'The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo,' was accepted for publication.

I always grew up with the idea that in order to be a successful writer, I should have a book published.

Every author dreams of the kind of attention that 'Beautiful Children' has received in the press. Obviously, it's a shock whenever it happens. So yeah, I'm as surprised as everybody else.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

When I settled to writing seriously, which would be in my 30s, I did expect to be published eventually, but my aspirations weren't very high. A published book and a few appreciative readers was my idea of heaven.

I began writing seriously in my mid-20s and didn't publish my first book until I was 41.

The bewildering success of my books continues to surprise me.

I had no idea I'd end up writing four books when I completed 'Mortal Engines.' I didn't even think it would find a publisher.

I didn't do any writing seriously until I was in my mid-twenties. But I've never really thought of myself as doing anything else. I've always wanted to write.

I was writing at a really young age, but it took me a long time to be brave enough to become a published writer, or to try to become a published writer. It's a very public way to fail. And I was kind of scared, so I started out as a ghost writer, and I wrote for other series, like Disney 'Aladdin' and 'Sweet Valley' and books like that.

I dreamt of being a writer once I started to read. I started to write 'Bonjour Tristesse' in bistros around the Sorbonne. I finished it, I sent it to editors. It was accepted.

When I was about 14, in about 1984, I decided to become a great poet. Faber & Faber was going to publish me, and when Ted Hughes read my first anthology he would invite me to Yorkshire for meat pies and mentorship.

Once I decided to write, to be published, I knew it would happen.

I don't want to be famous per se, but I want to write books for as long as I can. And I plan on writing a lot.

I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. 'The Gathering' did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time.

Sadly, I don't think books ever sell based on your name alone - the minute we make an assumption like that is the minute it all goes horribly wrong!

My first book, 'The Age of Wire and String,' came out in 1995, and it was hardly reviewed at all.

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.