Robert Harris Quotes

If I have any advantage, maybe, as a writer, it is that I don't think I'm very interesting. I mean, beginning a novel with the last sentence is a pretty plodding way to spend your life.

I envy those writers who outline their novels, who know where they're going. But I find writing is a process of discovery.

I discovered that writing was very nice indeed when I was very young, and I never changed. I don't think my style has changed very much at all - though I hope what I say is a bit more interesting. It's about getting to know a character and loving them, I think.

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

'The Secret Life of Bees' was my first novel, so I had no process. I was flying by the seat of my pants, as they say, trying to understand how I, as a novelist, would work with story.

I stopped being an engaged journalist and became a disengaged novelist.

You become a better writer by writing. You become a better travel writer by writing about travel.

Well, I think everything I've ever read contributes to the background from which I write.

I'm still learning my craft, and I've been writing since I was nine.

I'm sure every author has their own process.

If you're mostly a writer - if your point of departure is writing something - which for a writer/director is sort of where you start, you're really influenced by the writers you love one way or another.

A writer is what I am.

Everything can be grist for the muse. Sometimes, writers draw on personal experiences. 'Ghoul' was just that.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

Usually after finishing a novel, I have a head full of bad ideas for the next one.

You know that feeling when you finish a final exam and you think, 'I never want to do that again'? Well I have the same feeling when I finish a novel. Each time I say, 'I think I may retire now' and then after six months the ideas start to churn again. I could never stop.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

I knew I was a writer; I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't know what to write.

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.

I don't begin a novel with a shopping list - the novel becomes my shopping list as I write it.

All experience helps when you write.

No one knows how to write a novel until it's been written.

I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.

Writing is something I want to explore. If I were to do it, I would want it to be not a book made by a YouTuber; I would really want to respect that craft of literature and just be an author.

I have a really good idea for a novel and would like to just kind of try my hand at fiction. I'm starting to kind of get a really good body of work going from a literary standpoint. As long as the audience is there, man, I'll keep cranking them out.