American - Author | October 17, 1971 -
I get tired of comedies where there are a bunch of funny guys and a beautiful woman who doesn't do anything funny. And I don't like books where there's a rough-and-tumble boy and a really clever, snotty girl. That's just not my experience with teenagers.
Patrick Ness
FunnyGirlBeautifulExperienceBoy
If you're 15 and you tell someone a secret, they can put it up on Facebook. If you make a mistake, someone films it on their mobile and puts it up on YouTube. When you're 15, you deserve privacy.
MistakeSomeoneYouPrivacyDeserve
The magical and fantastical isn't something I'm uncomfortable with in books, and I chafe slightly at the idea that a purely realist novel somehow has more value.
ValueUncomfortableMoreRealist
A book cannot apologize for what people may think it should be. It has to be authoritative. That's what I want as a reader - I want to be confident that the book will do its job.
JobPeopleBookThinkConfidentMay
Folk tales and myths, they've lasted for a reason. We tell them over and over because we keep finding truths in them, and we keep finding life in them.
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When I'm writing, I'm just in it and trying to figure out what seems best.
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Online is such a brilliant, brilliant way to connect with young readers - even if they just want to tweet, 'Hey, I read your book!' - that, absolutely, I connect with that. But I also treat writing as solitary and keep it to myself as long as I can.
MyselfWritingBookTreatLongWant
If you sing beautifully about nothing, no one will listen. If you sing badly about great stuff, no one will listen. Ideas are everywhere, but my theory is that a writer doesn't just think of an idea: they perform them.
GreatIdeasThinkYouNothingWill
Forget market or publishers or whatever. Just write with fire and joy, and in my own experience, those are the stories of mine people have wanted to read.
ExperienceFireJoyPeopleForget
We have lost the idea that something can be secret because it is valuable, not because it's shameful. If you share everything with everybody, what have you got for yourself? I tweet and I blog, but I save a lot for myself. Not because I am ashamed.
MyselfYourselfI AmYouLostShare
I got tired of books where the boy is a bit thick and the girl's very clever. Why does it have to such an opposition? Why can't they be like the girls and boys that I know personally, who are equally funny and equally cross? Who get things equally wrong and are equally brave? And make the same mistakes?
FunnyGirlMistakesTiredBraveWhy
Your reader is interested in a guileless, fresh, first-time-we-talked-about-it way. What a great liberation that is. And teenagers, if you respect them, will follow you a lot further than adults will, without fear of being a genre that they may not like or have been told not to like. They just want a story.
FearRespectGreatStoryYouWant
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