Salman Rushdie Quotes

Every time that I write a novel I am convinced for at least two years that it is the last one, because a novel is like a child. It takes two years after its birth. You have to take care of it. It starts walking, and then speaking.

A woman can tell me about her having a baby, but I'll never know what it is to have a baby.

I am a mother and I know the feeling of having a baby come out of my gut.

I'm a mother of a three-year-old, but when I started 'California,' my son wasn't even a twinkle in my eye. Because the book took as long as it did, I wrote it before I was pregnant, while I was pregnant, and as a new mother - so I enjoyed a diversity of experiences while creating this world.

Each time, I think I'm never going to write another book. It never gets easier.

Lyrics are so important, I hate every second of writing them, but it's something I take great pride in when it's finished.

Most every book I bring into the world is like birthing a baby; it's a lot of effort!

Writing a book is like torture that you don't know, but after it's done and there it is. It's a joy like unlike anything else, I think it's the closest that a man can come to knowing what is feels like to have a baby.

I enjoy writing but I much prefer the experience of having written.

People say it's cathartic to write a book, but it turned out to be quite painful!

'Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years.

Usually after finishing a novel, I have a head full of bad ideas for the next one.

Birth was something that came quite unexpectedly, and afterwards there was one child more in the house.

Writing is like carrying a fetus.

Completing a book, it's a little like having a baby.

I just finished a novel, and I'm back kind of noodling on the screenplays. Screenplays are tough. I am making music, I'm just not sure what kind of music it is or where it's going.

I found my first novel difficult. I don't want to make it sound like it's any more difficult than driving a cab or going to any other job, but there are so many opportunities for self-doubt, that you just kind of need to soldier on.

As a writer, you live in such isolation. It's hard to imagine your book has a life beyond you.

For me, writing a novel goes on for years, and the solitude goes on, too. It tends to swallow me at times. I know it's a problem when my husband sends the dog in to retrieve me.

I always imagined that having a baby is something that I'm going to keep in a private place, but maybe my curse is that all I'm going to want to do is tell everybody about what my birth process was like and what my children's nightmares are.

The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

Pregnancy is something that I always love. It's about hope and the future and a new baby.

I love being pregnant!

Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very hard, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, of conscious thought - whereas short stories slip out painlessly in a few days.

Most women get pregnant and even though it's a challenge physically and uncomfortable, they generally wanted to be pregnant.