William Gibson Quotes

I don't write for any particular kind of person.

I'm getting a lot of mail from readers, and I'd say 90% seem to be from adults, which amazes me. But then again, I can only write what I imagine I'd like to read, and I'm an adult, so maybe it's not so surprising after all.

You write to suit some sense in yourself and trust that that will resonate with a certain wider readership.

I'm never sure who I'm writing for, or who's reading me, but I definitely see myself in conspiracy with my readers.

What I am finding now is that my audience is getting younger as I get older, which is a very good thing as you know - you don't want them to get older as you get older.

I try to write stories that will attract younger readers and make them feel part of a wider readership. I do not feel able to write books that are about, or even for, teenagers; and I am inclined to be suspicious of books which 'target' them.

What I write is not for little girls.

I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself.

I've come to accept who my readers turn out to be, rather than having some sort of demographic target.

Every newspaper lives by appealing to a particular public. It can only go ahead of its times if it carries its public with it. Success in journalism depends on understanding the public.

I write to be read. I'm quite direct about that. I'm not writing to thrill colleagues or to impress the professors at the University of Iowa; that's not my goal.

When I started off in journalism, you knew there was an audience out there and that you wanted people to read what you produced. But it also felt like you had a limited ability to shape the audience, or to acquire an audience, for what you were doing. So you didn't really think too much about that.

He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.

In truth, I never consider the audience for whom I'm writing. I just write what I want to write.

I think all writers write for an audience. There is no such thing as writing for yourself.

I just try to put the thing out and hope somebody will read it. Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say 'Yes,' I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you.'

Even the most careful and expensive marketing plans cannot sell people a book they don't want to read.

No matter what you write, it's a matter of putting words in a certain order so that the reader will be interested in what you're writing.

I'm trying to write for people my age. And my inspiration over the years has changed dramatically.

Full House was a show that was done for ten-year-olds. The critics hated it. They said terrible, terrible things about it. But it should have been reviewed by ten-year-olds. That's who it was made for. They loved it. And if they loved it, great. Why the hell does a fifty-year-old guy working at a big newspaper have to tell me I'm a piece of crap?

Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say. Of course those who write short books have even less to say.

My writing model is my mother, who is a writer as well. She always valued clarity and simplicity above all else. If someone doesn't understand what you're writing, then everything else you do is superfluous. Irrelevant. If any thoughtful, curious reader finds what I do impenetrable, I've failed.

In the big picture I write for an audience of people I've never met. By the final draft I'm looking for anything in the prose that's prospectively boring to strangers.

I don't consciously try to take my readers on a journey as I don't really think about my readers when I'm writing. I just try to write what I feel passionately about, to tell a story down onto the page.

I'm not interested in writing for adults. I like them as people! I don't like the way they publish books in that world. Nothing ever gets a chance.