Carlos Ruiz Zafon Quotes

My first YA novel, not many people have read. It's a fickle business. There's a degree of timing and luck involved.

My first book, 'The Age of Wire and String,' came out in 1995, and it was hardly reviewed at all.

You're only as good as your last collection, which is an enormous pressure.

I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that 'nothing succeeds like success.'

As a writer, you write the book, you give it to your editor, it's copy edited, it's published, it's thrown out there, and then there's a response.

The poems were the only thing I wrote that was not for everyone else. Then my editors at Penguin, who were also friends and had seen several of them, aggressively urged me to do a book. Editors can be aggressive, especially after drinks. That's how 'Beyond This Dark House' appeared.

I made a very conscious effort to finish 'The Cypress House' before 'So Cold the River' launched, because I thought that would help build a buffer between my writing and any impact that came from either the success or the failure of that first book.

There is a lot of pressure to top yourself... to come up with a 'Rumours II,' and that seemed like a trap.

I've played for Real Madrid, where the pressure is so huge because you have to go and really win absolutely every game.

The reality of the writer's world is that you set yourself up for disappointment with every success that you deliver because with every success you raise your readers' expectations.

Hillary Clinton wrote a book. She got paid. I don't understand why I can't.

Second novels are bears. As are other people's expectations for them. I think taking the time you need with the second book is key. Writers spend years and years on their first novels and then are often expected to turn out a second at warp speed, a recipe for failure.

It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her, but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.

I think there's a certain amount of pressure depending on how demanding the part is, depending on how great the material is. I feel a certain amount of pressure to rise to the occasion.

Having a constant productive anxiety doesn't mean that people are miserable and wailing but that people know they will be held accountable if things do not go right.

Once you become an Olympic champion, you are expected to win all the time.

The big bestsellers aren't being created by Barnes & Noble.

With every film, the pressure is on the rise for the next.

As an author, I love to know my book sells really well.

I'm not sure if you can strive your way into a career as a novelist. You have to write books; there are no short cuts.

I feel as much pressure as anyone does about their work, really. You just want to be productive; only difference is that the work is seen and judged by a few more people.

When Messi plays the ball, everybody expects many things from him. Sometimes it's too much because we have to let Messi breathe a bit.

I know very well that one cannot become an author by just writing a book.

At Arsenal and the so-called big clubs, you always know that there will be a bigger spotlight on every single position.

Debut novels are difficult because nobody knows you... they just don't find a huge audience, because that's how the market works.