Mal Peet Quotes

Sometimes I feel that the people I'm writing are more real to me than the people around me. When you take that imaginative leap, you're living so much in that world.

I love sitting at my desk and facing a quiet day with a pen in my hand, and putting myself into a story. It's kind of weird, isn't it? I mean, to absent myself from real life and make up stories is strange, but I started doing this when I was ten years old. It was all I wanted to do.

You live vicariously through your characters.

As a writer, it is always fun to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes.

My natural tendency is to write about zombie bunnies, but one of my first writing teachers got incorporated into my writing superego, and I keep hearing his admonition to make things feel more real the weirder they get.

One of the amazing things about writing fiction is that you do get to be other people.

I love stories. I just enjoy telling stories and watching what these characters do - although writing continues to be just as hard as it always was.

I could always imagine more interesting places to be than where I was. And more interesting people than me being there. Eventually, this led to making up stories and writing things down.

It's fun to tease people about where fiction and life intersect.

I have such a rich fantasy life, I can't help it. I do make up a lot of romantic stories in my head.

I kind of write in my own little world.

I'm a storyteller, and I was an actor, so I have a fairly thin grip on reality to begin with.

The idea of science fiction, mythology, and creating a world is my favourite thing. I do love the reality of dramas and playing that, but being able to start from scratch, to completely build the character and this world, I love that.

I love pretending more than reality.

I've always toyed around with creating over-the-top lady characters in my head.

There is a part of me that has to depend on fantasy, because if you can't be somewhat of a fantasy person, then you can't write

That's one thing about fiction: you can make the world be the way you think it should be.

I have every sympathy for writers. It's a mystery to me what they do. I can edit. I can cross out and say, 'I'm not saying that' or, 'How about we move this to here? Wouldn't that make that bit of the story better?' But where any of it comes from is beyond me. I will never write a play or a novel.

I loved the world of imagination.

There's nothing more fun to me than new characters and a new world.

There are many ways to go about a story. And if you give yourself some formal constraints, it just makes the job so much - maybe 'easier' isn't the right word, but because you know your boundaries, you can just play within those boundaries much more, so it's much more fun to do.

I'm at the mercy of whatever character comes into my head.

I love telling stories. Creating a character, a world, a whole universe out of nothing. That part I can't get enough of.

I'd listen to all the stuff that was going on around me and drift off into my fantasies about it. My fantasies have fuelled all the songs I've ever written.

Those golden minutes before you are completely awake, when your mind is just drifting, you have no censorship; you are ready to develop any kind of idea. That's when I come up with the best and worst ideas. That is the privilege of being a writer - that you can stay in bed for an hour in the morning and it's work time.