Cassandra Clare Quotes

Character is always my driving force. And to tell a good story and to provide an entertaining read.

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.

For me, inspiration isn't a sort of spark which lights the fire of the story. It's more like a thread, one of many, which you can tease out of a story once it's written, if you feel so inclined.

I just write the books that I think I would want to read.

I have no particular reader in mind, but a passionate desire to tell an honest, moving story.

For a writer it's a dream to sit and watch people as close as possible.

I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.

Sometimes I hear a voice - sometimes it's the voice of someone I know. And sometimes that leads to a character, which leads to a story.

I just simply write as it moves me. I may be writing about a book or a movie or a person, places where I've been or something I've done. Or politics. It's going to what's on my mind at the moment.

I strongly believe that the art of the novel works best when the writer identifies with whoever he or she is writing about. Novels in the end are based on the human capacity, compassion, and I can show more compassion to my characters if I write in a first person singular.

Most fiction comes from your experience.

Fiction is the thing I esteem most in my own work; I feel that, even if it's no good, only I could have written those books.

I guess I'm just inspired to tell stories.

As long as there's a strong theme that I can identify with, that's what makes me interested in writing.

I love to read stories. And I don't to get to talk about my favorite novels very often in my job.

I love short stories, but I've never had the impulse to write one. Same for ghost stories.

I write the story as it comes to me - YA is my natural voice, not a conscious choice.

Writing is a mysterious process, and many ideas come from deep within the imagination, so it's very hard to say how characters come about. Mostly, they just happen.

You have to write the story that's at the front of your head. There is no point in trying to write for the market; it won't ring true.

The hardest thing to teach young writers is that it's wonderful to tell your truth. And that's what you should do. But it damn well better be beautiful.

Writing is writing to me. I'm incapable of saying no to any writing job, so I've done everything - historical fiction, myths, fairy tales, anything that anybody expresses any interest in me writing, I'll write. It's the same reason I used to read as a child: I like going somewhere else and being someone else.

I tend to have an endless number of ideas for writing projects. I don't necessarily say that as a good thing. Maybe it's a good thing, but I have ideas for all kinds of projects: contemporary novels, graphic novels, anything that happens to go through my mind.

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

It's been a while since I've written a novel aimed at the adult market, but I never sit down and say to myself, 'Okay, now I'm going to write something for us old folks.' I get gripped by an idea, and I go where the idea takes me.

I want to work with anyone who's passionate about telling a story. I obviously have a list of people I really love, but it's a really long list.