My First Book Quotes & Sayings

I knew what I wanted to do when I set out. I knew that I wanted to write a book that told the story, obviously. I wanted it be comedy first, because I felt like there already had been childhood druggy stories that were very serious, and I felt that the unique thing here was that I was a comic and I could tell the story with some levity, and I have been laughing at these stories my whole life. — Moshe Kasher

So I picked the book up and did my usual 123 test. I don't bother reading the blurb on the back, or the first page - the writer's obviously going to be trying their hardest there, aren't they? It's how they're getting on by page 123 that's the real test. If they're crap at writing or bored with their story then you can bet they won't be making any effort at all by that point. — Siobhan Curham

I have read only the first 'Harry Potter' book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them. — Gene Wolfe

It's the first line in your book. I always thought there was a lot of truth in that. Or maybe that's what my English teacher said. I can't really remember. I read it last semester."
- Your parents must be so proud you can read."
- They are. They bought me a pony and everything when I did a book report on Cat in the Hat. — Nicholas Sparks

I was very naive, and I thought it was just a matter of writing my first book and sending it in, and for the rest of my life I would be writing books and collecting royalties. Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published. — Jerry Spinelli

My dream was to be known as a writer and to be able to produce at least one book that would be read by people. That dream came true with the publication of my first novel - and all the rest has been a sweet bonus. — Robert Cormier

The book that made a lasting impression was the one my mother gave each of us when she decided we were ready for our first 'adult novel,' Lucy Maud Montgomery's 'The Blue Castle.' — Hallie Ephron

I published my first book in 1982 - a collection of Irish folklore called Irish Folk & Fairy Tales. It is still in print today. My first young adult book was published a couple of years later, and I've been writing in both genres ever since. — Michael Scott

Force me to choose my best book, and I always come back to 'Gorilla.' It was the first time I felt I understood what picture books could do. — Anthony Browne

This room had long served as a retreat from the disharmony and sadness of the first floor, and it was here I had fallen in love with these books and authors in a way that only lifelong readers know and understand. A good movie had never once affected me in the same life-changing way a good book could. Books had the power to alter my view of the world forever. A good movie could change my perceptions for a day. — Pat Conroy

The cruise was the conduit for what would become my third book. While I was traveling and writing for ctnow, women across the United States and from the Caribbean emailed not to ask about my geographic journey but my existential one. "How do you find the courage to travel on your own?" they wondered. "How do you keep from getting lonely? Don't you feel self-conscious eating out alone?" After the first 30 emails like these I thought, There's a book here. It would be eight years before I published Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road. But the inspiration for publication came during the cruise. — Gina Greenlee

Me Kate. You Tarzan?"
"No." Curran bared his teeth at me. "In the first book, he grabs a lion by the tail and pulls it. Never gonna happen. First, an adult male lion weights five hundred pounds. Second, you grab my tail, I'll turn around and take your face off. — Ilona Andrews

I've only suffered writer's block badly once, and that was during the writing of Chamber of Secrets. I had my first burst of publicity about the first book and it paralysed me. I was scared the second book wouldn't measure up, but I got through it! — J.K. Rowling

One day, I found my dad's dressing-gown in an old suitcase, and it transported me back to when I was five and thought he was a god or a superhero who could do anything. After that, I wrote my first positive book about fathers, about my dad. — Anthony Browne

I guess my most prized pop culture possession is a signed first edition of the book 'Fight Club' by Chuck Palahniuk. — Jen Lancaster

What advice do you have for writers working on their first novels?
If you feel called to write a book, consider it a gift. Look around you. What assistance is the universe offering you as support? I was given an amazing mentor, a poet, Eleanor Drewry Dolan, who taught me the importance of every word. To my utter amazement, there were times she found it necessary to consult three dictionaries to evaluate one word. — Kathleen Grissom

I have wanted to "make books" since around the sixth grade, and I published my first book when I was in my late thirties. My point is that the time in between was not wasted - submarine service, marriage, college, bringing up three kids, starting a school for them, and so forth. This kind of life experience is not distracting you from your appointed task of writing. It is, rather, the roundabout blessing of giving you something to say. — Douglas Wilson

I have been writing poetry since 1975. My first poetry book was published in 1986. — Taslima Nasrin

For several days after my first book was published, I carried it about in my pocket and took surreptitious peeps at it to make sure the ink had not faded. — James M. Barrie

'Perfect' is about a set-up that looks perfect from the outside - beautiful country house, beautiful wife and mother, everything where it should be - and the deep fissures that, in fact, lie beneath that. 'Perfect' was partly a response to the shock of my first book, 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry,' being a success. — Rachel Joyce

In that book which is my memory,
On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you,
Appear the words, 'Here begins a new life'. — Dante Alighieri

I think the book struck me in a few ways that I thought very interesting to pick it as my first martial arts film. It has a very strong female character and it was very abundant in classic Chinese textures. — Ang Lee

I read my first book on Woodrow Wilson at age 15, and I was hooked. — A. Scott Berg

There are many poets that use as my models. In my first book of poems, I had several for the "Sleepwalkers," I had several poems that were apprentice poems like this in which I take a walk with a poet who is no longer alive. — Edward Hirsch

How to Stay Christian in Seminary should be placed in the hands of every first-year seminarian. It provides a much-needed balance as they navigate the beautiful but treacherous waters of a seminary education. I plan to use this powerful little book with great profit for my students in the years ahead. — Daniel L. Akin

Perhaps when I first arrived on this world so long ago I may have known more. Now, though, I do not have knowledge of as much as I used to. The years, many of them, have changed this world and the great societies flourish with change. Although I feel nothing but pride for this, I am saddened as well. For as the changes occur my knowledge of this world dwindles. As such, I seek to learn, to regain that which I have lost. Do you now understand?" ~ except from "Raging Land", book 2 of 3 in the "Patrons of Earth" Trilogy by A. N. Jones (quote is subject to change) — A.N. Jones

I never knew what an extraordinary thing it could be to write a book. In the first place, the characters take the bit between their jaws and canter off with you into places you don't want and never catered for. I had smugly intended my book to be about a family rather like ours, but, lud love you! it's already turned into an account of a barmaid's career in an Edgware Road pub, and I can't squeeze us in anywhere!

Odd things happen, too. I had called my pub, 'The Three Feathers,' and counted on there being heaps of pubs in Edgware Road, not called that, but looking a bit like my description. Before we left home, I went down Edgware Road to investigate, and found my pub, even down to the old-fashioned phonograph on the table in the upstairs sitting-room. And I thought, 'I built that place. — Rachel Ferguson

My first book was the book that changed my life. — Stephen Ambrose

If you want to win this argument with Dad, look in chapter two of the first book of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. There's a quote there about how philosophers say a great deal about what science absolutely requires, and it is all wrong, because the only rule in science is that the final arbiter is observation - that you just have to look at the world and report what you see. Um ... off the top of my head I can't think of where to find something about how it's an ideal of science to settle things by experiment instead of arguments - — Eliezer Yudkowsky

The book is called 'Thanks for Nothing' and it's really the story of how I got into comedy and traces back every strand in my life that is relevant to that story. It's kind of an autobiography but isn't, as it stops about 25 years ago. It goes right up to the first time I do stand up. — Jack Dee

Conspiracies fascinate me. When I visited the Rozabal shrine in Srinagar before writing my first book, I remember thinking that the person enshrined there was no ordinary mortal. History is rife with mysteries, and that visit ignited a fire to unveil some of them. — Ashwin Sanghi

One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily. In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone. At least in my case, the first paragraph is a kind of sample of what the rest of the book is going to be. That's why writing a book of short stories is much more difficult than writing a novel. Every time you write a short story, you have to begin all over again. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

When I was 11 or 12, I was really bored with everything on my summer reading list. It was all happy, middle-grade kinds of books. I was getting frustrated, because I liked to read. My mother went to the library and got me a copy of 'The Other Side of Midnight' by Sidney Sheldon. It was my first adult book. — Lauren DeStefano

There was scrutiny is Lincoln's eyes as he looked at me. He was studying me. Eyeing me up and down. Taking in my hair, my mouth, my eyes. His gaze fell on the ring pierced through my nose. He stopped at the small leftover drawings illustrated on my wrists from yesterday's English class doodlings--reading me like I was a book that had been on a shelf so long dust embossed the title on the spine. He read me as though he was the first to crack open that cover in over a decade. I felt him blowing off the pages. — Megan Squires

Fall into the cavern of my mind, and together there, we will dine. — Brad Jensen

When I have a first draft, I have a floor under my feet that I can walk on. And then, especially with the help of the computer, rewriting is so easy to do with the computer, much easier than it used to be with the typewriter. So the books go through numerous drafts. — Philip Roth

The usual run of children's books left me cold, and at the age of six I decided to write a book of my own. I managed the first line, 'I am a swallow.' Then I looked up and asked, 'How do you spell telephone wires? — Bruce Chatwin

While researching my first book, I discovered so many fascinating tidbits that I wanted to share them with readers to remind them that while the book was fiction, the situations were based on historical realities - some of which were pretty hard to believe. — Julie Klassen

The first book was my first attempt at writing full-length prose. — Neil Simon

The thing is that my first novel, which was basically a mystery adventure story, won quite an important award in Spain for young adult fiction, and because of this it became a very successful book, and right now it's some sort of a standard title, it's read widely in many high schools in Spain, so I think, in a way, I was a victim of my own success in the field of young adult fiction, because it was never my own natural register. I never intended to write that kind of fiction, but I became very successful at it. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I would like to have your sureness. I am waiting for love, the core of a woman's life."
Don't wait for it," I said. "Create a world, your world. Alone. Stand alone. And then love will come to you, then it comes to you. It was only when I wrote my first book that the world I wanted to live in opened to me. — Anais Nin

I was incredibly lucky that my first book found a large and loyal readership. It changed my life - from being a very withdrawn adult to living in Paris as a full-time writer. It has also given me enormous confidence. — Daniel Tammet

When I first learned about Abrams and saw the types of books they were making, I knew I wanted my books to be published by them. Abrams books are special-when you hold one in your hands, you have the feeling that this book needed to be made. I once heard an artist say that books are fetish objects-I think Abrams gets that, because their books demand to be treasured. So who better to give comics art its proper due? I feel privileged to have found a home with Abrams. — Jeff Kinney

I once read Updike after writing a first draft, and I wanted to put my own book on the fire. I've since learned to read utter crap while I'm writing: pulp is the thing. — John Niven

I've always liked getting away with just a little bit of what you're not supposed to. Like my first book, Billy's Booger, got me in trouble with the principal's office. — William Joyce

When I had my first gig, I was 18 in January in 2007. My first gig that I got paid, I was playing for 10 people in a 250 people capacity venue. The promoter wanted to book me because he liked my music. I played a couple of songs that made people dance. To me, that rush has always stayed the same. — Afrojack

In my book entitled 'L'eau et les reves, I collected many other literary images in which the pond is the very eye of the landscape, the reflection in water the first view that the universe has of itself, and the heightened beauty of a reflected landscape presented as the very root of cosmic narcissism. — Gaston Bachelard

Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement. — Harlan Coben

I think that my first book - I was trying to write the kind of book I would have loved as a kid. So it's sort of, like, a book inspired by my childhood reading and the passion that I felt about reading when I was a kid. — Rebecca Stead

Hey. Do you want a cracker?" a velvet voice asked me.
I didn't look up, I wasn't sure if he was even talking to me. Why would an attractive senior be talking to me?
"Hey, I'm talking to you," he said, a chuckle in his voice.
I slowly lifted my head peering at him from under my long lashes. His dark brown hair swept across his forehead, and his deep blue eyes made me gasp. He wore the ultimate laid back style, a white t-shirt and jeans. All he needed was a black leather jacket, and he would be the bad boy from my book. The smile on his face was breathtaking and I found myself unable to speak. — Felicia Tatum

I remember writing a song when I was about 15. This is the one I can remember. I know I'd been writing poetry for a long time, since I was about eight, but I remember my first one that I put to chords. I was really trying to be like the psychedelic era Beatles, I was obsessed. All I could think about was Beatles and Hendrix. So I tried to write a psychedelic song, and it was the worst. I couldn't even ... If I read it now - I still have the book somewhere - it makes me cringe out loud. It was just about psychedelic stuff. — Ladyhawke

I suppose it was the worst book any man has ever written. It was a colossal tome and faulty from start to finish. But it was my first book and I was in love with it. If I had had the money, as Gide had, I would have published it at my own expense. If I had had the courage that Whitman had, I would have peddled it from door to door. Everybody I showed it to said it was terrible. I was urged to give up the idea of writing. I had to learn, as Balzac did, that one must write volumes before signing one's own name. I had to learn, as I soon did, that one must give up everything and not do anything else but write, that one must write and write and write, even if everybody in the world advises you against it, even if nobody believes in you. Perhaps one does it just because nobody believes; perhaps the real secret lies in making people believe. That the book was inadequate, faulty, bad, terrible, as they said, was only natural. — Henry Miller

My experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

'The Chicken Soup for the Soul' books are the result of over 20 years of teaching seminars and giving speeches. The first book contains all of the stories that I used in my seminars to illustrate the points that I wanted to make. — Jack Canfield

I remember once asking Grandma about a book she was reading, a biography of Abraham Lincoln, and how she answered me: this was the first conversation of my life that concerned a book, and 'the life of the mind' - and now, such subjects have become my life. — Joyce Carol Oates

And I think about my cell at the Pawiak prison. During the first week I felt I would not be able to endure a day without a book, without the circle of light under the parafin lamp in the evening, without a sheet of paper, without you ... — Tadeusz Borowski

My first novel was only a try-out,' said David carelessly. The sort of thing every undergraduate has to write, but now I know much more clearly what I ought to do. I don't suppose you read my first book?' 'I don't think so. What was it called?' 'Why Name.' 'Why?' asked Mary. 'Exactly. Why? It is so cretinous to give a book a name. A book exists freely in itself and a name pins it down horribly. When you are in town you must meet some of my friends who are doing advanced writing and plays.' 'Are — Angela Thirkell

My first book didn't even have a Canadian publisher. And that upset me, because I so wanted a readership up there. — Patrick DeWitt

Thats why i'm staying here,"claire said."with you.tonight."shane took in a deep breath."clothes stay on." "mostly,"she agreed. "you know,your parents really are right about me."claire sighed."no,they're not.nobody knows you at all,i think.not your dad,not even michael.your a deep,dark mystery,shane."he kissed her for the first time since she'd entered the room,a warm press of lips to her forehead."i'm an open book." she smiled."i like books." "hey,we've got something in common." i'm taking off my shoes." "fine.shoes off." "and my pants." "dont push it claire. — Rachel Caine

Your MY first girlfriend I ever had
Your MY first boyfriend I ever had — Me

I wove my way between the tables, pulling my hair forward over my shoulders as I went.Alex was still sitting when I reached him.
"Hey.This was on the floor in the upstairs hall ... "
I stood behind his chair. Completely frozen.
I might have stood there for a very long time if he hadn't pushed himself away from the table to get up. The chair thumped me in the stomach first, then in the knees.I think I made a noise. I dropped his book.
"Oh.Oh,crap.I'm really sorry!" Alex jerked the chair out of the way and bent down a little. He had to, to see my face. "You okay?"
I did manage to nod.
"Seriously.I must have really pounded you there.You sure you're all right?"
"Yes,fine," I whispered.
Across the table, Chase Vere laughed. "Dude, she was,like, standing right behind you. — Melissa Jensen

The only reason I didn't kill myself after I read the reviews of my first book was because we have two rivers in New York and I couldn't decide which one to jumo into. — Wilfrid Sheed

But, you know, I just did a big trip in the spring to Vietnam and Cambodia and Thailand, and that's when I bought a Kindle. I have like 15 books on this one little gizmo. But when I came home, the first night I picked up the book that was on my nightstand and I went right back to that. — Lisa See

I made a very conscious effort to finish 'The Cypress House' before 'So Cold the River' launched, because I thought that would help build a buffer between my writing and any impact that came from either the success or the failure of that first book. — Michael Koryta

There were about ten years of trying, failing, trying again, suffering rejection, etc. My first published book, 'Story of a Girl', was the fourth book I wrote. — Sara Zarr

When I first quit my day job, I was terrified. I called my editors and said I'm trying to make a go of this, and they threw every contract at me they could. And for two years, I had a book or an anthology out every month. — MaryJanice Davidson

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. — Alexandra Adornetto

I recognized the great monument from the illustration in the copy of /The Jungle Book/ that my mother kept in the top drawer of my bedside table. When I went with Sophia to the Taj Mahal for the first time, I was not as enchanted by the real mausoleum as I had been by its plaster, paint, and paper replica in the studio; the original posed a dreadfully seductive promise in cool marble of a strangely painful loveliness, a lover's lie that death itself might in some mysterious way, because of love, be lovely. — Lee Siegel

I have a passion for words. I love words. And I'm just learning and developing my skills for words. I do books and I do journalism and plays. I have a broad palette. I don't have a great eye for direction. I love working with actors and I work very well with them because I appreciate what they bring to the table. I'd never say never, of course, but I look at it and don't really fancy it. I want to try and master the word side of it first. — Geoff Thompson

My first favourite book was 'Are You My Mother?' A picture book about a lost bird. After that my favourites changed almost yearly. I loved everything by Roald Dahl, but my favourite was probably 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.' A librarian gave me a first edition of that book, which I treasure. — Rick Yancey

Before I got to Juilliard I remember that I had learned the first few bars to all the Sachse etudes in several different keys because I knew what was coming. So in the first year he was throwing these Sachse etudes at me and I would knock off the first eight bars and fly right through it. He would say, 'Alright, that's good enough.' But, in my third year, he said 'Get out the Sachse book.' I couldn't understand why. So I pull it out and he said, 'Here, start in the middle.' I was in trouble! He said, 'Hey Balm, I took you for a guy who knows how to transpose-you're nothing but a bugler!' — Neil Balme

I felt overwhelmed. I didn't expect a first kiss to be so ... life altering. In a few brief moments, the rule book of my universe had been rewritten. Suddenly I was a brand new person. I was as fragile as a newborn, but instead of the doctor placing me in my mother's arms, he'd put me in Ren's. What would Ren do with me? Would he draw me near, soothe me, and teach me about this new world or would he reject me and tell the doctor there must be some mistake. There was no way to know. What a breakable and delicate thing a heart was, no wonder I'd kept mine locked away. — Colleen Houck

I started writing when I was twenty. My first book came out when I was thirty-five. But I never expected that it would happen quickly. — David Sedaris

Thanks to the comic book publishers. Batman and Captain Marvel were responsible for my learning to read at least a year before I showed up at school. They got me interested in writing. Started my first novel at about eight. The title: 'The Canals of Mars.' — Jack McDevitt

I feel that I'm an essayist and that my best work gets done in that form. I wanted to do a book where the essays could exist on their own terms. A book that was neither a book of essays that were shoehorned into a memoir, nor [one where] the essays had been published elsewhere first, [because] then they would kind of bear the marks of those publications. — Meghan Daum

Ford Maddox Ford's 'The Good Soldier' is my favourite novel. I first read it in the 1950s and have read it about 20 times since. It's possibly the best-constructed book in the English language. — Ruth Rendell

My specialty as a collector is books that almost have value. When I love a book, I don't buy the first edition, because those have become incredibly expensive. But I might buy a beat-up copy of the second edition, third printing, which looks almost exactly the same as the first edition except that a couple of typos have been fixed. — Lev Grossman

When I first opened this book and saw all those scholarly footnotes, my heart leapt up as though I saw a host of golden daffodils. — Steven Moore

One of the things that gives me a lot of pleasure about both the solo show and the book is that it tells people about my dad. He really was an important man. He was a kind of pioneer of regional theater. He was the first American producer to ever produce all of Shakespeare plays. — John Lithgow

Finally and essentially: I not only never could have, but never would have, written this book without the conversations with - and the kindness, grace, empathy, forgiveness, and wisdom of - Jared Hohlt, my first and favorite reader, secret keeper, and North Star. His beloved friendship is the greatest gift of my adulthood. — Hanya Yanagihara

I like mechanical things; my first book was a mechanics guide - that was what my parents couldn't pry away from me; that was the blanket. — Philipp Meyer

There's something I have to say," I said seriously, looking her in the eye.
She smiled. "Oookay." She was mocking me-mocking my tone-but I didn't care.
"Okay. Here it is. I love you," I said. "And I never, ever wanted to hurt you. It's like, the number one thing I never want to do, but somehow, I keep doing it. And I'm sorry, I just ... that's all I wanted to say all this time. All I was trying to do ... with that thing with your dad, not telling you ... was not to hurt you. And I'm sorry that I did.
Alley stared at me.
"And I'm sorry that I did it again. With the Chloe thing. Which was stupid. Like, really, really, stupid. And I-"
"Can you just stop, for a second?" Ally said, holding up a hand.
"What?" I said.
"Can you say the first part again?" she asked, rolling her fingers around for a rewind.
I racked my brain.
"Um ... I love you?" I said.
"That's the part, Cuz I love you, too. — Kieran Scott

If I were her? First thing I'd do is torch my little black book and start over again. Because the men that woman attracts are just plain odd. — Elizabeth Bevarly

My daughter Karen was born in 1958, the year my first Paddington book came out, so she grew up with him. — Michael Bond

I started my career as an actor, then morphed into a playwright who accidentally became a novelist with my first book 'Fall On Your Knees.' — Ann-Marie MacDonald

When the first book out my sister-in-law read it and we were chatting at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and she said, "Oh my God, chapter six, sex and a murder," and her five year old wandered into the kitchen and said, "Sixty hamburgers? — Sara Sheridan

I started the first drafts of the book during my sophomore year of college. I wasn't thinking at all about kids at the time. But I was thinking. A lot. About everything. I wish I could capture that head-space again; everything meant something to me in college. Every leaf, every sound, every lecture, every textbook. It's like I was on drugs, 24/7. I am glad I was able to pair that ceaseless pondering with plenty of time to write. What came of that time was the first draft of the novel, a lengthy, unnecessarily angst-driven pile of crap. Years later, with Zoloft, I approached the novel with a more level head, and came away with a much, much better novel. My advice to writers, I suppose, is write your novel when you feel like shit; edit when you feel great. — Caleb J. Ross

When I was eleven, my mother gave me Robert K. Massie's 'Nicholas and Alexandra.' It was the first 'grownup' book I read, and I loved it. — Kathryn Harrison

My first book, 'Fast Forward', was about growing up in the shadow of Hollywood and how kids are affected by the culture of materialism and the cult of celebrity, and I've often felt the reason my work has an audience in the U.K. is because it's everything the British love to hate about the Americans. — Lauren Greenfield

I decided he'd changed so much that a whole new book was required and that book actually I can say so was the first to say that the marriage was in trouble and the Prince didn't like at all and my book was being serialized in the Sunday Times over five weeks. — Anthony Holden

About a year after (my stories began being published), magazine editor George Scithers, suggested to me that since I was so new at being published, I must be very close to what I had to learn to move from fooling around with writing to actually producing professional stories. There are a lot of aspiring writers out there who would like to know just that. Write that book.SFWW-I is that book. It's the book I was looking for when I first started writing fiction. — Barry B. Longyear

We urgently need to find ways to push scientific and technological progress in directions that are likely to bring us good, and away from those directions that spell doom. This cannot be done if we stick to the erroneous view that all such progress is good for us. The first thing we need is to be able to distinguish those advances whose potential is most in the direction of prosperity and human flourishing from those whose potential is more in the direction of destruction and doom, and we need to find safe ways to handle those technologies that come with elements of both. Our ability to do so today is very limited, my ambition with this book is to draw attention to the problem, so that we can work together to improve, and avoid running blindfolded at full speed into a dangerous future. — Olle Haggstrom

I sell my first book to Random House, a memoir of my years as a war photographer, for twice my NBC salary. — Deborah Copaken Kogan

Introduction, the opportunity to write the book came while I was in law school, the result of my election as the first African-American president of the Harvard — Barack Obama

I began reading Harper Lee's novel in the skimpy shade of a pine outside my grandmother's house, fat beagles pressing against me, begging for attention, ignored. At dark, I kept reading, first on the couch, a bologna sandwich in one hand, then in my bed, by the light of a 60-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling on an orange drop cord. When my mother came in from her job as a maid and unplugged my chandelier, I replayed the story in my head until it was crowded out by dreams. I woke the next morning, smelling biscuits, and reached for the book again. — Rick Bragg

I work for two years on a book and it comes out and two days later I've got my first e-mail: When is the next one coming out? — George R R Martin

One of my favorite first sentences of a
book is from Rebecca, Last night I dreamt
I went to Manderley again. — Daphne Du Maurier

It had a crisp paper jacket, unlike the paper-covered library books I was used to, and the way the pages parted, I could tell I was the first to open it ... I valued that half-dream state of being lost in a book so much that I limited the number of pages I let myself read each day in order to put off the inevitable end, my banishment from that world. I still do this. — Allison Hoover Bartlett

He knows I have a soft spot for RLS and not just because he was sick or because we have the same initials but because there's something impossibly romantic about him and because before he started writing Treasure Island he first drew a map of an unknown island and because he believed in invisible places and was one of the last writers to know what the word adventure means. I could give you a hundred reasons why RLS is The Man. Look in his The Art of Writing (Book 683, Chatto & Windus, London) where he says that no living people have had the influence on him as strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind. Or when he says his greatest friend is D'Artagnan from The Three Musketeers (Book 5, Regent Classics, London). RLS said: 'When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge, I take them like opium.' And when you read Treasure Island you feel you are casting off. That's the thing. You are casting off and leaving behind the ordinary dullness of the world. — Niall Williams

But, in the end, the books that surround me are the books that made me, through my reading (and misreading) of them; they fall in piles on my desk, they stack behind me on my shelves, they surprise me every time I look for one and find ten more I had forgotten about. I love their covers, their weight and their substance. And like the child I was, with the key to the world that reading gave me, it is still exciting for me to find a new book, open it at the first page and plunge in, head first, heart deep. — Ramona Koval