Book Publication Quotes

Of course the success of A Boy's Own Story took me utterly off guard.

I've been writing since I'm five years old. I've been writing books since high school - junior high, high school. I write every single day. I never thought I'd be published.

I couldn't have known 'Crank' was going to be published, let alone become a big hit. That book was very personal for me: I had to tell the story for myself.

A lot of first novels are written long before they're actually put down on paper.

When I was in my teens, I was very, very keen on being the author of a book. What the book was was secondary. I wanted it to be in hardback. I didn't care how thick or thin it was, and I didn't actually care what it was about.

I worked as a carpenter for a few years. I began writing. I wrote a book about my time in Africa - that came out in 1988 - called 'The Village of Waiting.'

I didn't write a ton before 'After,' to be honest.

No, Queer Eye has a book coming out before mine, in the Spring of 2004, in which each of us has a section and we do a brief overview of our subject area.

I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn't realized it (the original book) had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.

I'm publicizing the book that's done. I'm writing the book that's in the hopper, and I'm doing a little advance research on the book to come.

I spend about a year between novels.

I had a publishing history of murder mysteries.

Reading the final copy of my book was like walking down memory lane all over again. Sure, the writing process was emotional, but when I had the final copy in my hands, it was a completely different feeling.

One, I have a wonderful publisher, Black Sparrow Press; as long as they exist, they will keep me in print. And they claim they sell very respectable numbers of my books, so I guess, and it's true, every place I go, my books are in libraries and on bookshelves.

I was elated when I found out my first novel, 'Leaving Patrick,' about a woman who walks out on her husband, was going to be published.

Til 1983, I wrote primarily for other psychologists and expected that they would be the principal audience for my book.

I published my first book, 'Drinking & Tweeting,' when I first started 'Housewives' and was being portrayed as a fun girl who spoke the truth.

I've worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years, and we have this magnificent photographer, Tad Motoyama. He takes these wonderful, wonderful animal pictures. All through the years he's given me copies of these pictures. Well, I have all these gorgeous ones, so I said, 'Tad, I want to do a book with your picture on one side.'

I publish my own books, so there isn't a certain editor I owe the book to at a publishing house.

I write a book over a period of months or years, and when I'm done with it, usually another year goes by before I see it in print. It's hard to be patient and wait.

I guess there's a sort of cycle with writing books. There's all the researching and then the imagining and writing - which is the real job - and then there's always a period when the book comes out and you have to lift your head and venture out.

The first time my mom read my very first book, she was like, 'I'm not gonna belabor this. It's not a big deal. But I have to ask the question: Is everything okay?'

The first book was my first attempt at writing full-length prose.

It was not until I began to write a book called 'Light Years' that an editor really stepped in. The editor was Joe Fox at Random House, and he wound up editing a subsequent book.

My dream was to be known as a writer and to be able to produce at least one book that would be read by people. That dream came true with the publication of my first novel - and all the rest has been a sweet bonus.