Literary Property Quotes

I always felt once it goes into movie land, the book belongs to someone else.

In our day the conventional element in literature is elaborately disguised by a law of copyright pretending that every work of art is an invention distinctive enough to be patented.

Writing a book is not a crime.

No one forces me, or any other writer, to sell a film option on the books. If you don't want to run the risk that the filmmakers may adapt your work in a way you don't like, then you don't sell the option. You know when you sell it that they will have to make some changes, just because film and TV are different media than books.

I can't stand it when writers moan about what film-makers might do or have done to their books. There's a very simple answer: don't take the money.

It makes one hope and believe that a day will come when, in the eye of the law, literary property will be as sacred as whiskey, or any other of the necessaries of life. It grieves me to think how far more profound and reverent a respect the law would have for literature if a body could only get drunk on it.

I was paid more for the serialization rights for each book than I got as an advance for my first novel. In other words, there is an economic value in serialization in and of itself.

Realistically, the chance of any book becoming a film is slim.

My producing partner and I were shown a novel we really liked. It was called 'My Abandonment' by Peter Rock, and we enjoyed reading it.

There's always a slight tension when you sell a book to Hollywood, especially a nonfiction book. The author wants his story told intact; the nonfiction author wants it told accurately.

As soon as I finish a book, I sell the paperback rights to different publishers and that's where I recoup my money.

I never did, and I never will, thank any man for altering any one word of my compositions without my privity.

Contrary to what many writers imply about the process, nobody forces a writer to sell his work to the film industry.

From time to time, just about every 'Vanity Fair' writer has a chance to sell rights to an article or a book to Hollywood.