John Lithgow Quotes

Too many writers think that all you need to do is write well-but that's only part of what a good book is. Above all, a good book tells a good story. Focus on the story first. Ask yourself, 'Will other people find this story so interesting that they will tell others about it?' Remember: A bestselling book usually follows a simple rule, 'It's a wonderful story, wonderfully told'; not, 'It's a wonderfully told story.'

Throat clutching from the outset! The Never List stands as a sterling example of psychological thriller writing at its best. Cancel appointments and give up on sleep. It's that kind of book.

40 Words for Sorrow is brilliant-one of the finest crime novels I've ever read. Giles Blunt writes with uncommon grace, style and compassion and he plots like a demon. This book has it all-unforgettable characters, beautiful language, throat-constricting suspense.

It's all still about having a good story. You have to have a good story as your anchor, as your main focus. So for me, personally, I just like to concentrate on writing the best book I can, and if there's other stuff that goes along with it, that's awesome, as long as the story is central.

Meg Gardiner is one of my favorite authors. She always delivers a terrific read. Phantom Instinct should go to the top of your 'to-be-read' pile.

It's also a lot easier to convince people to read an entertaining story than any other type of book!

I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people, take bad books away from people, give them better books.

No Way Back is my kind of novel - a tough, taut thriller - Mofina knows the world he writes about.

My books flow. People say they pick them up and they can't put them down. It's because when I'm writing them I pick my pen up and I cannot put my pen down.

Yeah I was aware of the book, but hadn't read it. So as soon as I'd finished the script, I got a copy of the book and read that. My wife had read it and she loves it, so that was a good sounding board. I like her writing style, she's such a page-turner. I enjoyed The Constant Princess as well. I think she's great. The books are very popular with women and I can see why.

The Compleat Angler is acknowledged to be one of the world's books. Only the trouble is that the world doesn't read its books, it borrows a detective story instead.

Breathtakingly real and utterly compelling, Immoral dishes up page-turning psychological suspense while treating us lucky readers to some of the most literate and stylish writing you'll find anywhere today.

Six Seconds is a great read. Echoing Ludlum and Forsythe, author Mofina has penned a big, solid international thriller that grabs your gut -- and your heart -- in the opening scenes and never lets go.

Many writers hate the shilling process, and I understand that. However, it's really the only thing about the publication process you can somewhat control. You can't affect reviews. But you can try to find your book an audience. One of the problems with the book publishing industry is that their publicity efforts tend to be spent on people who already read, and know how to discover, literary fiction.

With fiction, it could be about anything. It just has to be good writing, like Maria Semple's "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," which I read recently. I want to forget I have a book in my hand.

When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but to a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas. I think of the books on library shelves, without their jackets, years old, and a countryish teen-aged boy finding them, and having them speak to him. The review, the stacks in Brentano's, are just hurdles to get over, to place the books on that shelf.

For pleasure, I'll read military sf, or Elmore Leonard capers, anything that's fast and fun. Otherwise, I mostly pick at books, without any clear focus.

I think that good writing is based on good reading. Maybe it's not about writing today, maybe it's about reading today. Maybe it's about finding the sort of book you would never read.

A book of great beauty and manically exquisite insight with a wild and deadly humor . . . The only American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by genius.

For me, the goal is always to write a novel that I myself would like to read. People frequently ask me what my favorite book is, and in effect, there's always a capital-F Favorite, capital-B Book that I would like to write myself someday. I try to go for that ideal of writing the best, most entertaining, most beautifully written book that I possibly can.

You write a book like that you're fond of over the years, then you see that happen to it, it's like pissing in your father's beer.

May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books.

As far as this categorization of books, the way I see it is there are really a hundred-odd categories of books plus one, and on the top shelf at home, I've got the books I love, my favorite books, and that's the type of book that I want to write.

I see now that dismissing YA books because you're not a young adult is a little bit like refusing to watch thrillers on the grounds that you're not a policeman or a dangerous criminal, and as a consequence, I've discovered a previously ignored room at the back of the bookstore that's filled with masterpieces I've never heard of.

The age of the book is not over. No way... But maybe the age of some books is over. People say to me sometimes 'Steve, are you ever going to write a straight novel, a serious novel' and by that they mean a novel about college professors who are having impotence problems or something like that. And I have to say those things just don't interest me. Why? I don't know. But it took me about twenty years to get over that question, and not be kind of ashamed about what I do, of the books I write.