Kevin Henkes Quotes

When I write, I normally write anywhere that I can feel at peace, so if it's in my bedroom, if it's at the park, if it's by a lake somewhere, wherever I feel calm is where I like to write.

Real writers - serious writers with serious subjects, who earn their living at it - all seem to write in small rooms with that knotty-pine 1974 look on the top-floor rear of their houses. Rooms with views.

I like to go out and write. So I'll often go to a Starbucks or a local coffee bar, and I'll sit there and I'll write. I can write pretty much anywhere.

I've tried everywhere, but my garden shed is the most effective place to write.

I can only write new words at my desk, the one I've owned for 25 years. When we moved to our new house I designed my office around it. I've written everything I've ever written at this desk.

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.

I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.

I write pretty much when I can. I used to be very particular about needing certain conditions for writing, but when I had children, I discovered that I was a lot more flexible than I thought.

I don't have any writing routine. Sometimes I go to my local coffee shop and I write there for some hours. Apart from that, I am traveling most of the time. I write in airports, trains, hotel rooms... I can write anywhere.

Actually, I can write anywhere - airport lounges, in bed, on a rattling train going north.

I like to write at home a lot.

I wrote all four of my books at Starbucks.

It's what every writer needs: a daybed.

I developed the habit of writing novels behind a closed door, or at my uncle's, on the dining table.

When I am at home writing, I have all the power. I am God. But TV is a polytheistic universe.

Writing with kids is an adventure. It seems like someone always has the flu or pink-eye. I mean, you don't even have to be in direct contact with anyone to get pink-eye. But for parents who write, flexibility becomes essential, and as long as I have a pad of paper and a pen, I can write anywhere. Starbucks is fine.

I'm lucky in the sense that I can write wherever I am - on the bus, in the hotel room, backstage, sitting at home.

In the past, I was free to write in quiet and in the space wherever my desk was at. I could leave my instruments out. In the past, my writing was super private; I never liked showing my work at its earliest stages.

How I envy writers who can work on aeroplanes or in hotel rooms. On the run I can produce an article or a book review, or even a film script, but for fiction I must have my own desk, my own wall with my own postcards pinned to it, and my own window not to look out of.

I write in the mornings once the kids have gone to school, taking my laptop and a coffee to a little writer's room in town where I plant noise-cancelling headphones on my head and get to work.

What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.

The problem with too beautiful a view is that it's alright for the mulling stage. But for the writing stage, you want to be somewhere without a view, especially if it is very different from what you're writing.

I probably write best in my office, which is an extra bedroom in my house.

Decide where and when you want to write. I like space, and silence is an inspiration to me.

Every writer loves the idea of being able to go in and fix a problem and then leave without obligation. It's fun!