Jerzy Kosinski Quotes

I write contemporary fiction, and that is what my readers want to read.

If there is no love between the author and the story, there is no love between the reader and the story.

The biggest challenge of my career, which is something that authors of genre fiction face all the time, is writing something fresh and new and at the same time meeting reader expectations.

As I read, I start to form clear ideas of the characters and allow myself to be a proper conduit for this author's voice so that you will feel you have been on a seductive audio journey.

You put books out into the world, and people form their own visuals and images and attachments to characters; those characters become part of them, and they have their feelings about them.

I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a new world, who's willing to do their part. But then I have to do my part and give them a sound and a voice that they believe in enough to keep going.

I'm writing exactly the kinds of books I like to write. And they're the kinds of books I like to read. They're popular commercial fiction. That's what they are.

If there is an audience out there for me, I want them to be surprised when the next book comes out.

I think one of the paradoxes of writing fiction is when people enjoy it, they want it to be real. So they look for connections.

If a novelist tells you something she knows or thinks, and you believe her, that is not because either of you think she is God, but because she is doing her work - as a novelist.

I think that whenever a book is not a challenge, I'm telling the wrong story.

But because we've all been readers, we know what the experience is like, and we hope that what certain writers have given to us, we will give to someone.

You can't visit readers where you think they are. You have to invite them home to where you are and try to lure them into your universe. That's the art of storytelling.

When we read a book, we have a blurry image that's kind of physical but blurry. But we have an emotional image also. We have an emotional connection to the character.

My relationship with my readers is somewhat theatrical. One of the main things I try to do in my work is delight my readers.

People used to expect literary novels to deepen the experience of living; now they are happy with any sustained display of writerly cleverness.

I love it when my books cause controversy, when people argue violently about the ending.

Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I'm talking to people. It doesn't always work, and one shouldn't always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation.

As writers, we do our best to conjure a world so vivid that the reader can practically walk through it - but we're still only using words and relying on readers to do a lot of work of imagining. Providing pictures as well as words offers a whole new dimension to the experience of consuming a story.

In a single lifetime, roughly from 1865 to 1930, one finds the pioneering and patterning works of modern fantasy, science fiction, children's literature and detective fiction, of modern adventure, mystery and romance.

If it is good literature, the reader and the writer will connect. It's inevitable.

I want you, as a reader, to experience what I experience, to let that other world, that imaginary world that I have created, tell you things about the real world.

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

I think once you write fiction, you put it out, and it can be interpreted in a variety of ways, some of which are going to be shocking to the writer.

I like looking at a book and asking myself, 'How do I replicate that experience I just had as a reader?'