My first book was signed up when I was 13, and I've been writing ever since. But penning the 'Halo' series has been so much more rewarding than I ever expected. For three years, from the age of 16 to 19, I poured my life, my experiences, and a love for the supernatural that dates back to childhood into these books.
There's something lovely about writing a book, doing what you want. I love the solitariness of it.
When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.
I thought I'd go to a bookstore and see what moved me.
A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy.
Writing a novel is not so much a project as a journey, a voyage, an adventure.
The road to publication is like a churro - long and bumpy, but sweet.
Because reading is one of the joys of life, and once you begin, you can't stop, and you've got so many stories to look forward to.
I go into a book store and start having heart palpitations. I get very excited.
A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.
One day at my grandmother's house, I discovered 'The Secret Garden' and read it. This was the first book I found entirely for myself, and I cherished it.
Writing is a journey into the unknown.
My only dream is to get old and finally have time to read all the books that I'm collecting.
What I find really attractive is something that's going to be a little dangerous. Something that might get me into trouble; you know, you turn up in London and you've just rewritten Dickens. And, of course, then you think, 'What have I done?'
To be transported into another world is my very favourite part of reading.
Books are a finer world within the world.
A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.
Reading is a stout-hearted activity, disporting courage, keenness, stick-to-it-ness. It is also, in my experience, one of the most thrilling and enduring delights of life, equal to a home run, a slam-dunk, or breaking the four-minute mile.
I was a hugely unchaperoned reader, and I would wander into my local public library and there sat the world, waiting for me to look at it, to find out about it, to discover who I might be inside it.
The publishing world is very timid. Readers are much braver.
'The Blade Itself' was my first book. Probably I should've tried a few short stories first, but for some reason I decided to begin with Everest.
The readers are the ones who let us live our dreams. I try to write books which are really compelling - that you'd take on vacation and rather than going out, you'd read in your hotel room because you had to find out what happened. Hopefully that's what readers are responding to.
A passenger on a road journey is in the hands of a driver; a reader embarking on a book is in the hands of a narrator.
Every time I sit down to reread 'War and Peace' - I've read it three times - I feel as though I've lived another life.
Traveling to Europe and traveling in the U.S.A. was a much different experience. 'On the Road' exemplified everything glamorous that was happening on this side of the planet. The book puts off some kind of sweet melody - part hope for the world, part nostalgic.
