Roger Kahn Quotes

I remember the first time I held my book, my first book in my hands. I cannot tell you how it moved me.

The connection that I have with my readers makes me very happy, and gives meaning to the strange profession of writing

I sometimes get up at night when I can't sleep and walk down into my library and open one of my books and read a paragraph and say, 'My God, did I write that?

The first person you should think of pleasing, in writing a book, is yourself. If you can amuse yourself for the length of time it takes to write a book, the publisher and the readers can and will come later.

I like to be read. That's most of what any writer could want.

I enjoy writing, sometimes; I think that most writers will tell you about the agony of writing more than the joy of writing, but writing is what I was meant to do.

My first typewriter cost me $75. I can't tell you how many hours it took me to earn that money, or how proud I was of that object. I wrote my first books on it. They will never be published, but that's all right.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.

I am proudest of that first novel, 'Trust,' of anything I have written. I don't think I've had such intense energy since.

There are many people who say, 'I write for myself.' I think that if you write and publish, then you write for your readers, not just for yourself. Many writers say that they write to be loved. I place myself among those writers.

Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.

I've written the best work I know how. And I'm appreciative of the people who read it and care about the work - and that's pretty much the end of that.

I've never chased the dollar, I've always chased the reader's heart. I love having more readers. The more people who read it, the more thrilled I am.

I want to offer a word of encouragement to authors: You have to feel called to the message of your book enough that you want people to get that message. When you get to that place, your passion goes through the roof, and then the other stuff happens.

At one point, I just decided that it might be more creatively rewarding to put my time into writing on stuff that I could really be proud of rather than trying to get a one-episode part on 'Modern Family' or something.

I'm much too egotistical to move outside the acting realm.

A book brings its own history to the reader.

I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books.

Being published is not a necessary validation or a path everyone wants to take with their work. Writing—and finishing—a novel is a great thing in itself, whether or not the book is published, or becomes widely-read or not.

I just want to write books or give talks which, if I were in the audience or I were the reader, I would appreciate.

Writing is such a strangely and radically private act, and yet its purpose is this great sense of connection and community. I mean, I wanted people to love the book. And the only way to get them to love it is to try to make it good for them. So of course the audience has to be considered.

If he can give his readers no reason why they should read his book, except that the events happened to him, it is not a valid book.

Most of the pleasure of making a book would go if it held nothing to be shared by other people. I would write for a few dozen people, and sometimes it seems that I do so, but I would not write for no-one.

When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children.