Literary Goals Quotes

When a young writer comes up to me with an ambitious idea for a 20-book series, I usually tell him to maybe try something smaller to start off with.

Some people think memoirs should be held to a perfect journalistic standard. Some people don't. Obviously I don't. My goal was never to create or to write a perfect journalistic standard of my life. It was always to be as literature.

He [an earnest young reporter] seemed to share the view of many intelligent, well-educated, well-meaning people that, while adult literature may aim to be art, the object of children's books is to whip the little rascals into shape.

When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas.

[My mom] had always wanted to write a children's book. She was a children's librarian and an elementary school teacher, so of course she loves children and children's literature.

Novels aren't pedagogical instruments, or instructions in law or physics or any other discipline. A novel has to be an emotional experience, a trip of the imagination, and because science has raised so many issues that concern and affect humans, it's a good starting place for me.

What's the challenge in writing a novel that few people will read? I'm more than happy writing what I do and have no plans to change that.

In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend.

I want to do some fiction writing, I've had some pretty good luck with short stories, I'd like to do a couple of larger things.

I aspired from early on to write a novel, to be in the 'New Yorker,' to be on Broadway, and at least in a fleeting way, I got all those things.

I will write another book if I feel like it.

When I turned thirteen and took a typing class, with typical early teen enthusiasm and total lack of critical ability, I started sending my stuff to publishers once I'd babysat long enough to earn the postage.

I was always ambitious - not to make money: to be published.

The purpose of fiction is not to make people seem nice. What makes anyone think people are nice? Look around you!

Some readers sort of suspect that you have another book that you didn't publish that has even more information in it. I think that readers sort of want to be taught something. They have this idea that there's a takeaway from a novel rather than just the being there, which I think is the great, great pleasure of reading.

The goals of literature are multifold, but creating nice, positive protagonists that you'd want to grab drinks with or invite home to mom can hardly be considered one of them.

When I sit down to write a book, I don't ask myself, "How many am I going to sell?"

Not every novel that wants to be a tragedy gets to be one.

My father was a frustrated writer. I think he wanted to write the great American novel.

By the time I was in fifth grade, I was dreaming of the Pulitzer Prize.

When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children.