Alex Garland Quotes

My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected.

I, sort of, got into comedy accidentally, and it got bigger than I wanted it to.

My modeling career was really just a long accident - one that happened to coincide with my chocolate-cake phase.

From the moment I wrote 'Leaf Storm' I realized I wanted to be a writer and that nobody could stop me and that the only thing left for me to do was to try to be the best writer in the world.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

I was really surprised at the success of 'House of Sand and Fog,' because it is so awfully dark. Believe it or not, when writing it, I never had the word 'tragedy' in my head - I wasn't trying to write a dark book at all.

I sometimes think it ironic for an ex-seaman, longshoreman, truck driver, policeman, bus driver, etc... to find success writing children's novels.

I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail.

No one was more surprised that that first Boston record took off than the record company itself.

I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.

I am astonished, when I pause to think about it, to discover myself to be an author of humorous novels for children. Or an author at all. I had a childhood much like everyone else's. What went wrong?

I'll always struggle over saying I'm a writer, even if I won the Booker Prize.

Despite having written five books, I worry that I have not written the right kinds of books, or that perhaps I have dedicated too much of my life to writing, and have therefore neglected other aspects of my being.

I actually wanted to be a writer long before I wanted to be an actor.

Butterfly was certainly a vehicle for me, and if it died, it still would have served its purpose, in spades. We never expected it to give me the visibility it has given me. It was just a small thing as a vehicle, and suddenly the whole world knew about it.

I never dreamt I could be an author when I grew up. It just didn't occur to me, because I thought you had to be a) academic, so go to university, things like that, and I didn't think I was clever, or b) dead because I just assumed all the authors in the library were dead.

Diverting the internal traffic between the Writer as Angel of Light and the Writer as Hustler is that scribbling child in a grown-up body wondering if anybody is listening.

The Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie was an unexpected, unplanned pop culture phenomena. My father went from star-maker to star.

My family was very conservative, and I had a traditional upbringing. I was not brought up to be a sex symbol, nor is it in my nature to be one. The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding.

I knew I'd always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, 'Well, I'd rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one'.

For me, the biggest successes I've ever had were the ones I never counted on. I never thought my first big record would be a hit. I thought it was an average song.

The truth is that sometimes it is hard even for me to recognize the Hillary Clinton that other people see.

I don't think there was a time I ever thought of myself as anything but a writer. I thought I was going to be the next Toni Morrison.

I never expected my writing to become as popular as it did.

It was something I never expected to - I never expected the book would sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers.