Marilynne Robinson Quotes

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.

I don't aspire at present to be king of the hill in American literature.

Bruce Sterling is one terrific writer and he's relatively new, but I don't know how long he's been doing it; he probably doesn't need the publicity anymore!

I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen.

I've been asked too many times to write a book by the fans.

After a while, when the writer is mature, it doesn't really matter - not because of finances but because of reputation. It doesn't really matter how many awards you get.

When people write a novel, they want to have that reach and that impact. To get it with a first novel, you can either see it as an albatross or a calling card.

I didn't like being a name attached to a book.

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

I'm not a very fancy person. I've been a writer a long time, and right now 'The Hunger Games' is getting a lot of focus. It'll pass. The focus will be on something else. It'll shift. It always does. And that seems just fine.

You say that you hope I will be recognized as the best novelist of my generation. I want you to know now and know completely that that would mean to me absolutely nothing.

I haven't been the kind of writer about whom book-length academic studies have been written.

I'm very lucky. I'm very fortunate that my books have never gone out of print - none of them.

I'm a writer. I never expected to be recognised on the street. I never expected to get that kind of coverage, good or bad. I never expected to sell as many books as I have.

The bewildering success of my books continues to surprise me.

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 wrote 'White Teeth' in the late nineties. I didn't really feel trepidatious about it. It was a different time.

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.

All writers have the idea that they are famous.

I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.

I want to be a popular novelist who's also serious, or a serious novelist who's also very accessible.

I had a few stories and longer pieces published, but my first proper novel came in 2003, called 'Dead I Well May Be.'

When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer.

Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.

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