author's legacy Quotes

Think of a book special to you, and how much bleaker and poorer your life would be if that one writer had not existed - if that one writer had not, a hundred times or a thousand, made the choice to write. You're going to be that one writer one day for somebody you may never meet. Nobody can write that book you're going to write - that book that will light up and change up a life - but you.

I was saving the name of 'Geisel' for the Great American Novel.

"Literature" is written material that, 100 years after the death of the author, is forced upon high school students.

Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.

If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one.

An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.

What five books would I like to be remembered for? Well... Tau Zero, I like that one especially. It was somewhat of a tour de force, and I think it got across what I was trying for.

Salinger is such a terrific writer; he did so many great things. He is one of those writers that I still reread, simply because he makes me see the possibilities and makes me feel like writing. There are certain writers who put you in the mood to write. In the way a whiff of a cigar will bring back memories of a ballgame on a Saturday afternoon, reading Salinger makes me want to get to the typewriter.

One way an author dies a little each day is when his books go out of print.

The fact that Maurice Sendak said, "This is something that I made at your age, this was something that was personal to me, and now you need to take it and make something that's personal to you." I don't know, but we made the Where The Wild Things Are movie that we set out to make, and Maurice loves it. If Maurice was anxious about it, then I would be petrified.

'Arctic Summer,' as you might know, is the title of Forster's one unfinished novel.

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind

I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.

All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.

He directed that the stone over his grave be inscribed: Hic jacet hujus sententiae primus auctor: DISPUTANDI PRURITUS ECCLESIARUM SCABIES.

... as usual I am suffering much from doubt as to the worth of what I am doing and fear lest I may not be able to complete it so as to make it a contribution to literature and not a mere addition to the heap of books.

As an author, I don't really think too much about being a celebrity. It's not like being a movie star or a TV star. It's not as if people recognize me when I walk down the street. That hardly ever happens, and it's just as well. But it is great when people know my books, when I walk through an airport and see them in the bookstore, or when I see someone reading a book on a plane or on a train, and it's something I've written. That's a wonderful feeling.

I can't wait for both my daughters to be old enough to read all my books. I loved it every time I saw my parents acting like more than just my parents. And I'm looking forward to that with my daughters too. I am looking forward to having them discover me as someone completely other than their mother.

It's amazing that a man who is dead can talk to people through these pages. As long as this books survives, his ideas live.

In the end, the writer is not even allowed to live in his writing.