Author Interviews Quotes

You don’t ask a writer what typewriter he uses.

A book tour is, first and foremost, an exercise in humility.

When I read interviews with people like Kevin Barry or Colin Barrett, who I hugely admire, they don't really seem to come up against the question of likeability even though their characters, in some instances, are really horrible.

Okay, this is Fran Lebowitz. She gave an interview once for the Paris Review about trying to write fiction and saying that fiction writers start talking about how characters are talking to them, and it's crazy, she's never had that. And I also thought, I'm never gonna be able to do this, because I didn't feel that for a really long time.

How I work is that I write a story I'd like to read. Then you fly to Paris or Sydney and the interviewers talk about the greater significance of your work.

'The New Yorker's fiction podcast I like a lot, where they have authors pick short stories by other authors that appeared in 'The New Yorker.'

One of the best things about my job is that I get to meet a lot of great children's and YA authors at events all over the country. So I figured it might be fun to interview some of them and turn the interviews into short online comics.

I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels.

Writers of fiction should stick to writing, not pop up on panel shows or as a talking head.

I don't know why the world has changed so much that writers are now expected to appear in public and talk about their work. It's something I find very difficult. And yet, one does have some sense of responsibility towards one's publishers, to the people trying to sell the book.

I don’t ask writers about their work habits. I really don’t care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they’re actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?" I don’t need that question answered.

We can skip through a lot of the stuff people might ask about the writing of the book, and so their comments always start well, well down into the nitty-gritty.

This to me is the secret comedy of all author interviews, down through the ages, even the good ones in the 'Paris Review' and places. They're all acting. It's like watching a person in a play.

As an arts journalist in London, working mainly for the BBC, I interviewed hundreds if not thousands of authors. From them I gleaned a great deal of passing instruction in writing and I observed one fascinating detail: no two writers approach their work - physically - in the same way.

I think I'm much more comfortable talking about other books than my own!

Often the grind of book promotion wearies you of your own book - though at the same time this frees you from its clutches.

It's really cool to get these guests on the show BoJack Horseman: not just actors, but, "Can I get Jonathan Lethem on my weird talking horse cartoon show to talk about how growing up in Brooklyn, he always dreamed of being a ringtone?"

If you aren't on Goodreads, you should be. I've said it before, it's like Facebook for readers on crack.

I never read articles about my books.

For a wide-ranging look at literary matters, the 'Book Review Podcast' from the 'New York Times' is still one of the best. Presented by Pamela Paul, each episode has an interview with an author - recent guests have included Neil Gaiman and Sana Krasikov - plus a roundup of the uppers, downers and hanging-arounders on the U.S. bestsellers chart.

Sometimes my readers ask me what else they should read, and I recommend Sebald.

I've done a lot of interviews of the last few years, and I've actually started a list of questions that it would be fun to ask an author, but no respectable interviewer would ever ask. Since I'm not respectable, I'm going to start doing interviews with some authors I know, just for fun.

I'd be surprised if non-fiction writers hate to be interviewed. We all hate them, because there's really nothing to say except "Read the book." Right? At least with non-fiction, you can kind of convey some information, and people can decide for themselves whether they want more of that kind of information. But with a novel, what am I going to do?