Author's Pride Quotes

Seeing my book on a billboard in New York was a bucket-list-type thing, but also a deeply surreal moment. I had to keep reminding myself that, oh, yes, I wrote that book.

I look at my books the way parents look at their children. The fact that one becomes more successful than the others doesn't make me love the less successful one any less.

I don't need validation, recognition or praise. What I need are facts and the facts are that one of my books gets sold, somewhere in the world, every second.

The 250-page outline for American Tabloid. The books are so dense. They're so complex, you cannot write like I write off the top of your head. It's the combination of that meticulousness and the power of the prose and, I think, the depth of the characterizations and the risks that I've taken with language that give the books their clout. And that's where I get pissed off at a lot of my younger readers.

I remember the first time I held my book, my first book in my hands. I cannot tell you how it moved me.

I'm proud to be a crime novelist. What I've chosen is the best way to convey the questions I'm trying to raise.

You need that pride in yourself, as well as a sense, when you are sitting on Page 297 of a book, that the book is going to be read, that somebody is going to care. You can't ever be sure about that, but you need the sense that it's important, that it's not typing; it's writing.

GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.

I'm ashamed to say the first play I saw at the Royal Court was mine.

I sometimes get up at night when I can't sleep and walk down into my library and open one of my books and read a paragraph and say, 'My God, did I write that?

Most of you probably didn't know that I have a new book out. Some guy put together a collection of my wit and wisdom - or, as he calls it, my accidental wit and wisdom. But I'm kind of proud that my words are already in book form.

I sometimes feel that if your book sells more than 20 years, then there's something in it that you can say, gee, I did something that endures, that's timeless.

Publishing a novel was such a proud thing for me. When I was a kid, I used to say to my mum and dad, 'I'm going to write a book. You'll see.' So when I did, and it was published, and people liked it, it was great.

'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print. A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.

If you like my novels, I commend your good taste.

I've never gone back to the stacks after my book's expiration at the front of the store. Not because I'm above it or anything, but I'd be mortified if someone caught me looking for my own book.

I still think it's really quite wonderful when I read a sentence of mine and it has that quality of lastingness.

I'm here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something.

I think Republicans now are recognizing that [Obamacare cancellation] may not be what the American people, including even [Donald] Trump voters, are looking for. And my hope is that the president-elect, members of Congress from both parties look at, "Where have we objectively made progress, where things are working better?" Don't undo things just because I did them. I don't have pride of authorship.

There are people out there who genuinely love literature, who genuinely love to read and read widely, who will never like, or even necessarily get, my books. That was a hard one to swallow, to not feel slighted by.

The first accepted piece of writing is the most exciting. No other publishing experience matches it. Perhaps jaundice sets in, or expectations are raised, or one starts to think that one is better than is the truth.

I think What Dreams May Come is the most important (read effective) book I've written. It has caused a number of readers to lose their fear of death the finest tribute any writer could receive. ... Somewhere In Time is my favorite novel.

I suppose I'm proudest of my novels for what's imagined in them. I think the world of my imagination is a richer and more interesting place than my personal biography.

I am proudest of that first novel, 'Trust,' of anything I have written. I don't think I've had such intense energy since.