Andrew Vachss Quotes

There came a time when I felt I was not going to be satisfied with life unless I could write.

I just knew I would be a writer. It just seemed the only sensible thing to do.

All I wanted to do was to follow my passion and tell a good story.

It was a romantic dream to be a writer. It seemed like a calling.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write.

Writing itself is a dream. There are days of self doubt and deadlines and wondering how you're going to pay the bills until you write that bestseller. But it's still the best job I've ever had. I've also been able to help a lot of people and even inspire a few and that feels great.

I am a writer - that is what I am before being a performer or musician. I love waking up in the morning and then going to sleep that night with something that did not exist.

I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.

There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings.

I did have a child, and I was reading a lot of picture books to her, but at the same time writing a children's book was something that I'd been wanting to do for many years, pretty much since the start of my career.

I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.

A novel I read when I was about 17 or 18 - 'The World According to Garp,' by John Irving - really made me want to become a writer. The character of Garp is a novelist, and at the time, the whole lifestyle of being a writer was hugely appealing to me.

I'm always fascinated by why a person becomes a writer.

I liked the idea of being a writer more than I liked the idea of writing.

When I was really young, my ambition wasn't to do science. I didn't really know that I could. It was to write a great novel.

I started writing stories at a young age, but not once did it occur to me that I could grow up to be a writer. Who could I look to? My favorite authors were Ann M. Martin and E.L. Konigsburg and Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary and Lois Lowry and Norma Klein. They were all white women, and they seemed so stately to me, so elegant. A whole world away.

I love being a writer so much that I almost can't believe that I am one.

My big dream has always been to write and create my own things.

My wife has been incredibly supportive of me as a writer. Trying really hard to make sure I get the space and time I need to work as a writer and being willing to make some of the sacrifices that you have to make to live the life of an artist.

The process is different for every book, but there are similarities. I always draw from the inside out. I don't plot them ahead of time, and I'm always surprised by things that happen in my books.

I don't think in genres. Once I get a germ of an idea I wait for it to die! And if it refuses to die and keeps coming back, I start thinking more about it. Then come the world and the characters. I wait to get bored and if I don't get bored- then I start building on them.

I became a writer out of the desire to express myself.

As a kid, I dreamt of becoming a writer. My most exciting pastime was reading novels; in fact, I would read anything I could find.

Creativity is not about the fame.