Jonathan Maberry Quotes

I'm not sure there are too many people who write what I write.

People love talking about writers as storytellers, but I hate being called that: it suggests I got it from my grandmother or something, when my writing really comes out of silence. If a storyteller came up to me, I'd run away.

Mainly I love working on good writing.

I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.

I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.

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.

Now I'm not an author, I'm a writer, that's all I am.

When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it.

You have to go where the good writing is.

Give me good writing, and I'll play it all day.

There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.

I like writing my own material - I'm pretty good at it.

I think that successful writers somehow capture truths that resonate with readers.

I prefer writing originals.

I've always liked new writing.

I think anytime you start relying on a format to get you by you've got weak material to begin with.

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

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.

Doing interesting things and then writing about them is the best way to become a good writer.

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.

Robert Ludlum, all of them, write the absolute best they can. You can't tone it down. You just do what you do, and if it comes out literary, so be it.

I am, really, a great writer; my only difficulty is in finding great readers.

How much energy is wasted in Italy in trying to write the novel that obeys all the rules. The energy might have been useful to provide us with more modest, more genuine things, that had less pretensions: short stories, memoirs, notes, testimonials, or at any rate, books that are open, without a preconceived plan.

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