Jan Mark Quotes

My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.

My novels are all ideas.

A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.

When I am writing a story it feels as real as the life I am experiencing off the page. It's an emotional illusion, I guess.

Most fiction comes from your experience.

I am a story teller and I take each story very seriously.

I've always written about other artists, or I write my thoughts down, but I've never written a story.

A notion for a story is for me a confluence of real events, historical perhaps, or from my own memory to create an exciting fusion.

I never set out to write literature; I set out to tell stories. And some of my work may be very raunchy and very bloodthirsty - but life, for me, is a violent thing.

I don't care whether the story is real or fantastical. I tell the story that needs to be told.

I love stories - devising them, writing them, reading them, watching them, being a part of them.

Those of us with this ancient compulsion to tell stories sometimes start with a single kernel of something.

I've tried to tell a story. For me, it is the best one.

Fundamentally, I think of myself as a storyteller, not a writer.

I know it may sound silly, but I think my short stories have a life and identity of their own. They crop up in all sorts of places.

I love telling stories. Creating a character, a world, a whole universe out of nothing. That part I can't get enough of.

No, the thing is, we all love storytelling, and as a writer you get to tell stories all the time.

Fiction is about telling a good story, first and foremost. But of course, everything I'm interested in or angry about leaks into my writing, from art to violence against women.

I like to think of myself as a storyteller.

I'm always saying that my books are not autobiographical because they're not. I can't choose any one scene and say, 'Oh, this is exactly what happened to me!' I just use little snippets of things as a starting point!

Sometimes my lyrics may describe a situation that happened to a friend. Other times, I create a story from the ground up.

I love stories. I just enjoy telling stories and watching what these characters do - although writing continues to be just as hard as it always was.

I like to think that I am telling a story rather than writing it.

People are always thinking that I'm the main character in my books, but each one has been different, and sometimes they've been men.