E. L. Konigsburg quote: "Characters are so important to a story that they actually decide where the story is going. When I write, I know my characters. I know how things are going to end, and I know some important incidents along the way."

The essential problems remain the same... The kids I write about are asking for the same things I wa...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

When I began writing in the mid-1960s, I thought it was not important for readers to know whether I ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

Readers let me know that they like books that have more to them than meets the eye. Had they not let...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

After I won the Newbery Medal for 'From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,' ch...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I was the first one in my family to go away to college. I came from a small town where there was no ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I get ideas for my books from people I know and what happens to them, from places I've been and ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

Art comes from a visceral need and is usually generated by something I have seen; writing comes from...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I think most of us are outsiders. And I think that's good because it makes you question things.
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I was born in New York City. But my family moved when I was still an infant. Except for a year and h...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

When I was in college at Carnegie Mellon, I wanted to be a chemist. So I became one. I worked in a l...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

Growing up in a small town gives you two things: a sense of place and a feeling of self-consciousnes...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

Often the search proves more profitable than the goal.
E. L. KONIGSBURG

I think it's important to experience kindness so that you can experience it more in the future. ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG

Often the search proves more profitable than the goal.
E. L. KONIGSBURG

What happened was: they became a team, a family of two. There had been times before they ran away wh...
E.L. KONIGSBURG

...I didn't run away to come home the same. -Claudia
E.L. KONIGSBURG

I am a passenger on the spaceship Earth.
E.L. KONIGSBURG

I've been the oldest child since before you were born
E.L. KONIGSBURG

How can you know what is missing if you’ve never met it? You must know of something’s existence ...
E.L. KONIGSBURG

I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also ...
E.L. KONIGSBURG

Before you can be anything, you have to be yourself. That's the hardest thing to find.
E.L. KONIGSBURG

For the novelist or poet, for the scientist or artist, the question is not where do ideas com...
E.L. KONIGSBURG

The girl clones at Singer Grove were just like the ones in Texas; they knocked themselves out to be ...
E.L. KONIGSBURG

Had she been born 500 years sooner, Raphael would have chosen her as a model for his cherubs. Tendri...
E.L. KONIGSBURG

Because we are human we have a long childhood, and one of the jobs of that childhood is to sculpt ou...
E.L. KONIGSBURG

The way I see it, the difference between farmers and suburbanites is the difference in the way we fe...
E.L. KONIGSBURG

The nature of good fiction is that it dwells in ambiguity.
E. L. DOCTOROW

If we ever find out how the brain works, with all its complexity, then we will be able to build a ma...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I never set out to do this - getting to No. 1 in the 'New York Times' bestseller list wasn&#...
E. L. JAMES

I'm a bit of a control freak.
E. L. JAMES

Yes, I'm a 'Twi-hard.' I became obsessed. Absolutely obsessed. I didn't watch televi...
E. L. JAMES

I see myself as a story teller.
E. L. JAMES

I hate having my photograph taken.
E. L. JAMES

Everyone's clamoring for the fourth book in the 'Fifty Shades' trilogy, which makes me l...
E. L. JAMES

I've worked in television all my life, but really I've always wanted to work in the movies.
E. L. JAMES

I don't watch much British television at all. I mean, it's ironic because I used to work in ...
E. L. JAMES

If you've been married for 400 years, as I have, it's nice to experience first love again an...
E. L. JAMES

I've set the bar quite high in terms of storytelling.
E. L. JAMES

I think women love to read love stories.
E. L. JAMES

I'm looking forward to getting back to my house and my Ugg boots and not washing sometimes, and ...
E. L. JAMES

I'm not a great writer.
E. L. JAMES

I came up with a story and I wrote it.
E. L. JAMES

Once you're in charge of your job, your house, your children, getting the food on the table, doi...
E. L. JAMES

All a writer wants is to be read, and people are so flattering and lovely. I mean, there are witches...
E. L. JAMES

Write for yourself. That's it. And write every day.
E. L. JAMES

God forbid that women have fantasies.
E. L. JAMES

I really like clever men who challenge you.
E. L. JAMES

Women basically want the same thing - a good passionate story, a great fantasy - and for our partner...
E. L. JAMES

I value my anonymity. I'm happy to come in on the tube or the train and watch other people readi...
E. L. JAMES

I think women love a passionate love story.
E. L. JAMES

The important thing is not to be too comfortable when you're writing. Noise in the street? That&...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I started on computers with 'Billy Bathgate,' a little orange screen with black letters. I t...
E. L. DOCTOROW

One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the p...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I have a number of vices, one of which is moderation.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I began to ask two questions while I was reading a book that excited me: not only what was going to ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think o...
E. L. DOCTOROW

A period of time is as much an organising principle for a work of fiction as a sense of place. You c...
E. L. DOCTOROW

When I'm writing, I like to seal everything off and face the wall, not to look outside the windo...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.
E. L. DOCTOROW

Books are acts of composition: you compose them. You make music: the music is called fiction.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I discovered Einstein said the same thing about his celebrated theories of relativity that writers s...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.
E. L. DOCTOROW

We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I like commas. I detest semi-colons - I don't think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotat...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're do...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I got married very early, and in no time at all, we had three children. And it seemed to me I had an...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Here's how it goes: I'm up at the stroke of 10 or 10:30. I have breakfast and read the paper...
E. L. DOCTOROW

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.
E. L. DOCTOROW

The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we n...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.
E. L. DOCTOROW

It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the w...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.
E. L. DOCTOROW

In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the per...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Murders are exciting and lift people into a heart-beating awe as religion is supposed to do, after s...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The true greatness of a nation is not measured by the vastness of its territory, or by the multitude...
L. E. BLAZE

You can't remember sex. You can remember the fact of it, and recall the setting, and even the detail...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
E. L. DOCTOROW

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.
E. L. DOCTOROW

It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make t...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Washington is designed not to solve problems. Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution in the general interest will be frustrated an...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I don't think anything I've written has been done in under six or eight drafts. Usually it t...
E. L. DOCTOROW

In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the per...
E. L. DOCTOROW

If Dr. [John A. T.] Robinson is right in saying that "God is teaching us that we must live as men wh...
E. L. MASCALL

Commemoration of Eglantine Jebb, Social Reformer, Founder of 'Save the Children', 1928 I do not w...
E. L. MASCALL

Enough has... been said to show that the impoverished secularized versions of Christianity which are...
E. L. MASCALL

Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary Even the most traditional theologian wil...
E. L. MASCALL

Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: In the rare cases where faith appea...
E. L. MASCALL

Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: The critical scholar is not committe...
E. L. MASCALL

Beginning a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: If we are prepared to admit, even as ...
E. L. MASCALL

Feast of Mark the Evangelist There are, of course, interesting questions that can be asked about t...
E. L. MASCALL

Suffering isn't a moral endowment. People don't always do well under duress, and it seemed t...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin. It should make you jump up and do something.
E. L. SIMPSON

As the majestic pearl is formed inside a clam through much irritation, so are you being formed throu...
E. L. MCDOWELL

Making decisions in anger is like spitting in the wind; it comes back and hits you in the face.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Struggles are really opportunities for your next level.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Boredom is the result of lacking focus.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Prosperity is a mindset.
E. L. MCDOWELL

The greatest challenge man will face is himself.
E. L. MCDOWELL

State of mind determines destination.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Take nothing or no one for granted, for what is predictable today will one day become unpredictable ...
E. L. MCDOWELL

Build a man's ego and you'll win his favor; crush a man's ego and you'll receive much grief from him...
E. L. MCDOWELL

Time is an advocate for truth.
E. L. MCDOWELL

If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

We dress them [children] in the presumptions of the world. They are the bright small face of hope. T...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Not really, ... There is no Carl. I made him up.
E. L. DOCTOROW

Its glory is all moonshine.
E. L. DOCTOROW

So what this is is a 'road novel.' Eventually entire civilization (in the South) had been uprooted a...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The wretched war had destroyed not only their country but all their presumptions of human self-regar...
E. L. DOCTOROW

For some reason that excited me.
E. L. DOCTOROW

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Antagonists come with all life progression.
E. L. MCDOWELL

Closed doors present other opportunities!
E. L. MCDOWELL

Existence is the greatest opportunity one can have; so why settle for a mediocre state of being?
E. L. MCDOWELL

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing,...
E. L. DOCTOROW

We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and ner...
E. L. DOCTOROW

The thing about this march is it was totally different than the rest of the war, as bloody and bruta...
E. L. DOCTOROW

He was a brilliant man, a complex man. The march justified him as a military man, but he had a great...
E. L. DOCTOROW

You could go for miles without seeing an end to the procession of troops and horses and wagons, ... ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

You can't do that to Carl.
E. L. DOCTOROW

It seemed to me so much more sensible to make something up than go through the tedious business of i...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I can walk into a bookstore and hand over my credit card and they don't know who the hell I am. Mayb...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I don't see any point in making a big fuss about it. I just said, 'No, thank you.'
E. L. DOCTOROW

My father was the proprietor of a music shop on Forty-third Street, where many of the finest perform...
E. L. DOCTOROW

You were my marital bliss,” he said to me this morning. “You can be again!” You know what I an...
E. L. NEVE

The movie that changed my life,' he liked to say, by which he meant that it had changed his wardrobe...
E. L. NEVE

I like to think of myself as an unmediated novelist - or perhaps a national novelist.
E. L. DOCTOROW

Movies are too literal.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had los...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I'm not the sort of writer who can walk into a party and take a look around, see who's sleep...
E. L. DOCTOROW

A new reader shouldn't be able to find you in your work, though someone who's read more may ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

My theory about why Hemingway killed himself is that he heard his own voice; that he reached the poi...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Writing is immensely difficult. The short forms especially.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I can walk into a bookstore and hand over my credit card and they don't know who the hell I am. ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Obama is a great man who's just beginning to understand the realities. And I'm not just sayi...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I get intrigued by a first lin and I write to find out why it means something to me. You make discov...
E. L. DOCTOROW

There are two books that impressed me when I was very young. One was 'The Adventures of Augie Ma...
E. L. DOCTOROW

Somewhere along the line the rhythms and tonalities of music elided in my brain with the sounds that...
E. L. DOCTOROW

I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech.
E. L. DOCTOROW

In fiction, you know, there are no borders. You can go anywhere.
E. L. DOCTOROW

When you're working well, you don't do research. Whatever you need comes to you.
E. L. DOCTOROW

To have the regard of one's peers is immensely moving.
E. L. DOCTOROW

My sense of what a book should be has changed so radically. I like to think for the better.
E. L. DOCTOROW

I've outlasted many marriages at Random House.
E. L. DOCTOROW

People come out of the mid-west and go to the Ivy League. I kind of reversed the direction.
E. L. DOCTOROW

My books start almost before I realise it. Once in a while, some accident causes an idea to rise to ...
E. L. DOCTOROW

From my undergraduate days, I've always been interested in the major philosophical questions tha...
E. L. DOCTOROW

'The One-Eyed Man' is a novel that was one I never intended to write.
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

According to my royalty statements, 'The Green Progression' sold 392 copies in hardcover.
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

I've often said that there's no one thing that I do or have done that is particularly unique...
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

If I recall correctly, I think I signed my first contract with Tor in 1983.
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

I'm not sure there are too many people who write what I write.
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

Science fiction writers have usually been very poor prognosticators of the future, either in literar...
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

My experiences in the military, the private sector, and as a congressional staffer were at times alm...
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

When I was in my late twenties, a friend suggested that, since I was an avid SF reader and had been ...
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

I started writing poetry in high school because I wanted desperately to write, but somehow, writing ...
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

I actually started out as a poet in high school. I published in small literary magazines for probabl...
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

I only did about one novel a year while I was working full time, but since 1993, I've averaged t...
L. E. MODESITT, JR.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
E. E. CUMMINGS

To destroy is always the first step in any creation.
E. E. CUMMINGS

Nothing recedes like progress.
E. E. CUMMINGS

Unbeing dead isn't being alive.
E. E. CUMMINGS

I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more...
E. E. CUMMINGS

Humanity I love you because when you're hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.
E. E. CUMMINGS

I imagine that yes is the only living thing.
E. E. CUMMINGS

At least the Pilgrim Fathers used to shoot Indians: the Pilgrim Children merely punch time clocks.
E. E. CUMMINGS

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.
E. E. CUMMINGS

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.
E. E. CUMMINGS

Unless you love someone, nothing else makes any sense.
E. E. CUMMINGS

It takes three to make a child.
E. E. CUMMINGS

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.
E. E. CUMMINGS

Be of love a little more careful than of anything.
E. E. CUMMINGS

Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go.
E. E. CUMMINGS

Here is little Effie's head. Her brains are made of gingerbread. When the judgement day comes, God w...
E E CUMMINGS

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.
E E CUMMINGS

It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.
E E CUMMINGS

He without fear is king of the world.
E. E. EDDISON

America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: Amer...
E. E. CUMMINGS

Unbeing dead isn't being alive.
E. E. CUMMINGS

To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight th...
E. E. CUMMINGS

To like an individual because he's black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn't whi...
E E CUMMINGS

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.
E. E. CUMMINGS

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
E. E. CUMMINGS

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.
E. E. CUMMINGS

America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: Amer...
E. E. CUMMINGS

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience ...
E. E. CUMMINGS

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody e...
E. E. CUMMINGS

A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. ...
E. E. CUMMINGS

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blu...
E. E. CUMMINGS

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
E. E. CUMMINGS

A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man.
E. E. CUMMINGS

Private property began the instant somebody had a mind of his own.
E. E. CUMMINGS

Palm Sunday In the person of Christ, the formidable law of God, which by itself appalls us by its...
E. E. JENKINS

To destroy is always the first step in any creation.
E E CUMMINGS

Characters are so important to a story that they actually decide where the story is going. When I write, I know my characters. I know how things are going to end, and I know some important incidents along the way.

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E. L. Konigsburg

Characters are so important to a story that they actually decide where the story is going. When I write, I know my characters. I know how things are going to end, and I know some important incidents along the way.

E. L. Konigsburg

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