Donald E. Westlake Quotes

I think new writers everywhere need opportunities to get published.

When I started out in the early 1930s, there were a great many magazines that published short stories. Unfortunately, the short-story market has dwindled to almost nothing.

The market for short stories is hard to break into, but a magazine editor isn't always looking for big names with which to sell his magazine - they're more willing to try stories by newcomers, if those tales are good.

There are so many people that want to tell stories. I think that the issue is how hard it is to get your foot in the door to tell your stories.

I came up with new leads for game stories by being observant and clever, by using the many gifts of the English language to intrigue and hook a reader.

I like the eclipses, the synaptic jumps of short stories. The reader has to participate very actively in the experience.

I love telling stories. I love the intimacy between the writer and reader. When you write sketches it's over in two minutes. When you write a book the characters have to have a bit of emotional depth.

I shall be but a shrimp of an author.

We decided we wanted the site to provide readers with fresh new stories to enjoy between major book releases by their favorite authors while allowing those same authors to flex their creative muscles.

For most of us, fanfiction is a non-issue. Even for midlist writers. We will never be popular enough for people to play in our worlds with any frequency. The problem for us is getting people to read and care about our books that much in the first place.

Well, to aspiring writers, I would tell them that we live in a wonderful time where you're able to make your work visible, easily.

In the early '70s - a very good time for children's books and their authors - editors and publishers were willing to take a chance on a new writer. They were willing and able to invest their time in nurturing writers with promise, encouraging them.

There are tons of really good writers out there, but for one reason or another, they just have not had the support that allowed them to build audiences.

I started writing when I was 11. In my late teens, I was writing short stories of every conceivable type and sent them to everything from 'Future Science Fiction' to 'The Sewanee Review.'

Chronology can be dangerous. You can get so linear that it becomes robotic for the reader.

I mostly write short stories. They are best written in a continuous creative process. You have a feel of immediacy.

The first obligation of the writer is to be interesting. To be interesting; not to change the world.

I don't care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Novels are more difficult simply because they are longer and require more juggling, but short stories are closer to perfection, if you can get the language right.

I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it's good for the circulation.

Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes. The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story... To make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all.

Part of the particular interest and beauty of science fiction and fantasy: writer and reader collaborate in world-making.

I have never had a point in my life to make. I'm just trying to entertain the reader.

When you write a novel you have to live with the characters for a long time. So I prefer short stories. I never wrote anything more than 250 pages.

My job as the writer is to fool you. Your job as the reader is to see if you can catch me at it.