Norton Juster Quotes

After a while, you start to realize that you should write a book you would want to read. I try to write a book I would enjoy.

I really write for people.

When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.

I write what's given me to write.

You write, hoping to write a good book; that's it.

When I'm writing, I don't really have much other guide than, 'As a reader, how would I respond to this?'

In a way, I started 'Goon Squad' not even realizing I was writing a book. I thought I was just writing a few stories to stall before starting this other book that I wanted to write - or thought I wanted to write: I still haven't written it.

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

I've always been a writer.

I love writing books - I really do. If I could just quit everything and work on a book every day, I would love that most.

Writing a book is a long and difficult process for me. I'm a slow writer, so I spend the year with Elvis Cole and Joe Pike in my head. I was thinking about this the other day. I wrote the first book in 1987. Literally every day since that time, Elvis and Joe have been in my head. They're always there. I started these guys because I like them.

If I did anything 'next', I would do writing.

But, somewhere in there, I did have the thought that this really fits in with my thinking about what I wanted to do; with what has to be done by a writer in order to stay alive as a writer.

Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.

If I ever wrote a book, people would never believe it.

Somebody said writing is easy, you just sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. It depends on the book. Some, I have to do quite a lot of research, which I like. Others are much closer to me.

Listen, I wrote 10 unsuccessful books before I broke through, so I'm looking all the time to keep my books fascinating. I want to write what people want to read, not push any message.

How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.'

I write what I'd like to read and just hope that, along the way, others might like to read them, too.

As a writer, you have to first of all write what you want to. Listen to advice, by all means, but don't get bogged down in it.

We don't have to think up a title till we get the doggone book written.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

There's a mystery to writing, and you don't really know where most of it comes from.

Once I finished 'Eileen,' I wanted to write more novels. I don't see myself stopping any time soon.