Andrew Clements Quotes

I have realised just how important it is to readers to feel that fictional stories are based on reality.

If I'm reading something I happen to know and gets it wrong, I just don't trust the book any more. What I ask of a novel I'm reading is that it should know a fraction more about the things I know than I do. When I'm writing...I ask myself: would I be convinced by this if I read it? If I knocked against this bit of scenery, would it feel solid?

The Catcher in the Rye had such a deep impact on me, because it felt like it was just Holden and me. I didn't feel like any other person had read that book. It felt like my secret. Writing that I identify with feels like it's just me and the writer. So I hope that whoever is reading what I do feels like that.

Perfect heroes are cool, but no one can really empathize or identify with them.

It's challenging to take on something else that is not you and make it very real and have others be able to associate with it. It's wonderful to provoke thought.

Very often the characters people respond to best have little parts of reality they can relate to.

I think I'm relatable.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.

I look for songs that the listener, when they hear it, they believe what I'm singing about, that I know what I'm singing about. That's my whole deal. I try to choose songs that a male or a female can perform and relate to.

I always tend to write about outsiders. And what's been fun for me is, as I travel around and visit schools, is that other kids that feel the same way relate to some of my characters, and so I hope in some way that's helping them when they want to read about somebody that they can relate to.

I'm just like my fans, and that's the way I like it.

The biggest compliment to me is that guys really approach me and they have a connection with me, so there must be something I'm doing that is authentic, otherwise they wouldn't connect with me so strongly. It's a real compliment.

I don't know what the secret to longevity as an actress is. It's more than talent and beauty. Maybe it's the audience seeing itself in you.

But you can't show some far off idyllic conception of behavior if you want the kids to come and see the picture. You've got to show what it's really like, and try to reach them on their own grounds.

Part of the success of the show is that the audience sees themselves in the characters, becomes the characters. The more they inhabit the characters, the more they see.

Readers prefer a world they can relate to.

The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

On 'Awkward,' we really like to send the message out that we're relatable, and that we get what people are going through.

I believe a No. 1 song starts happening when it's believable and validating.

I chose to present myself as one who comes from among the people, and I can be touched by their pain because I have my own.

Not everyone looks like Brad Pitt. There are people in the world that look like me. I think people feel that I could be living next door to them. That has much more effect on me.

I'm all about showing people that I'm a little messed up, I have a lot of the same problems you have. By exposing myself and putting myself out there, people can relate to me and my act won't grow stale. I mean, nobody wants to hear a comedian say, 'Life is great.'

Hopefully, any character I play has an anchor in reality.

I hope that doing truthful portrayals of people in a variety of circumstances gives people a kind of subterranean link to those characters.

Everyone is usually screwed up in some way and that is usually where the work comes in - figuring out how to make it believable and make it real to present someone's problems that you don't necessarily actually know anything about.