Robert Sheckley Quotes

I prefer writing originals.

Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

Literature for me isn't a workaday job, but something which involves desires, dreams and fantasy.

A baby writer should take inspiration from her predecessors but also find ways to tell her own stories in her own way.

I'm constantly creating and writing.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

The hardest part is not to repeat yourself. I don't really believe my core obsessions are going to change, but you need to look for ways to express them that are different. The main reason for doing that is not to bore yourself, and obviously, I don't want to bore readers.

Writing tips are like mini skirts. Sometimes they fit perfectly, sometimes they make you cry, and sometimes you can reuse the material and sew yourself a pillow or something.

I just write the books that I think I would want to read.

You have to have heart's passion to write a novel.

For me, it would be pointless to write a novel that I knew I could complete within a specific length of time. I could do that only by repeating something I had done before, and I've never wanted to do that.

I tell the stories that are of interest to me.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.

Let me read you some of my poetry. My poetry just takes me to another level.

Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction.

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

I write 'by the seat of my pants.' I love to do research. I am inspired by contemporary writers and contemporary events. I live in the real world.

One thing I always did in my career was writing. I always was writing. I was trying to create things. For myself, for other people.

I think there is often a 'what if' proposition that gets me thinking about all my novels.

I tell people you should write what you love to read because that's where your passion is.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

You know how it is with writing. You just write what you want to write. There's no way to predict what is good or bad. You just do what you think is funny, and either it works or you're finished. It's impossible to predict anything.

But this is neither here nor there why do I mention it? Ask my pen, it governs me, I govern not it.