Christopher Darden Quotes

I think that as I continue to write, my writing I hope will become more controversial and more provocative.

Ultimately, it's about the quality of the writing whatever style you are writing.

I have always been aware that you have to get people listening before you can change their minds. Any artist's big fear is being ignored, so if you get debate, that's great.

I think that whenever a book is not a challenge, I'm telling the wrong story.

Just why I sent it to the publishers would be hard to say, but when I had finished it I felt that it was literature, because it is real and because it was well written. And I know that the world wants such things.

I do not really write for children: I write only for me and for the few people I hope to please, and I write for the story.

No one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published.

I've got a big, long list of stuff you're entitled to hate about my books.

I had written a book. For various reasons, the publishing industry had decided that my book was going to be 'important.' The novel had taken me 12-and-a-half years to write, and after being with the book for so long, I had no real perspective on the merits or demerits of what I had written. I hoped it was good, but feared that it wasn't.

I like to think I've grown as a writer and taken some risks, but I still consider myself to be a literary writer.

I have been told by a member of the board of one of Canada's most prominent literary magazines that a submission of mine once caused a great deal of controversy.

I love it when my books cause controversy, when people argue violently about the ending.

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.

As a writer, you write the book, you give it to your editor, it's copy edited, it's published, it's thrown out there, and then there's a response.

If a writer doesn't generate hostility, he is dead.

One of the disconcerting things about writing for publication is that you're trying to clear your little parcel of land in a field where Taste is king - and, as we all know, there's no accounting for Taste.

I'm not over-enamored of complicated books, and wonder if it's more for the author's ego than anything else?

People like controversy because that's what sells.

I know that the writers I read and admire all have an influence on my work, but trying to determine to what degree any particular piece of input changes the way I think about writing seems counterproductive.

If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it.

I think every script I read has something that sends me into a state of panic but that usually makes me want to do it.

I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself.

The books I read, if they intrude on my writing, do so as weather will pass through and touch a landscape - affecting it, yes, but only now and then leaving a permanent mark.

I wanted to see if I could write a good book.

I don't write for any particular kind of person.