Writer Quotes by James Patterson

“Write the story. Don't write sentences.”

— James Patterson

I write larger than life. It's what I do.

— James Patterson

What kind of thoughtless creep would burn a book?

— James Patterson

Better readers are better thinkers.

— James Patterson

I don't think of myself as a writer.

— James Patterson

Nowhere will you meet more interesting people than in books.

— James Patterson

I love to tell stories. It's a delight for me.

— James Patterson

I write first thing in the morning, about 360 days a year.

— James Patterson

It's our job - as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles - to find books our kids are going to like.

— James Patterson

I guess I write four or five hours a day, but I do it seven days a week. It's very disciplined, yes,…

— James Patterson

The best way to get kids reading more is to give them books that they'll gobble up - and that will make…

— James Patterson

I think sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up…

— James Patterson

You see, one of the best things about reading is that you'll always have something to think about when you're not reading.

— James Patterson

Reading is not work, not a chore, not a drudgery; reading is the most joyful thing, yet, in the world.

— James Patterson

There's no such thing as a kid who hates reading. There are kids who love reading, and kids who are reading the…

— James Patterson

I'm not a writer's writer. I'm not a craftsman. I could be, and that would be a one-book-a-year operation.

— James Patterson

A lot of times you get people writing wonderful sentences and paragraphs, and they fall in love with their prose style, but…

— James Patterson

Schools and parents can team up to find books that kids will really get excited about - that will make them say,…

— James Patterson

I am not a great prose stylist. I'm a storyteller. There are thousands of people who don't like what I do. Fortunately,…

— James Patterson

What I'm really addicted to is getting people to understand that if their kids aren't competent readers coming out of middle school,…

— James Patterson

If you're not reading - with your heart as well as your brain - you will be one stupid grown up. Even…

— James Patterson

The fact is that our kids aren't reading books - or frankly, much of anything lately. Schools are under funded, some schools…

— James Patterson

If you want to write for yourself, get a diary. If you want to write for your friends, get a blog. If…

— James Patterson

With my adult books, for the first six weeks or so, it's about 60 percent ebooks in terms of sales. The kids'…

— James Patterson

I'm a very good storyteller; I have a lot of compassion for people. That's very useful for a novelist. A lot of…

— James Patterson

As we go through this transition where a lot more people will be reading on devices, nobody is paying enough attention to…

— James Patterson

In my office in Florida I have, I think, 30 manuscript piles around the room. Some are screenplays or comic books or…

— James Patterson

If it's commercial fiction that you want to write, it's story, story, story. You've got to get a story where if you…

— James Patterson

If the White House could do more to tell parents that getting children reading is their business too, we'd see a big…

— James Patterson

Commercial books don't even get covered. The reason why so many book reviews go out of business is because they cover a…

— James Patterson

Stop trying to write sentences and start trying to write stories.

— James Patterson

I think e-books are terrific in their own right. I love being able to get on a plane and basically carry around…

— James Patterson

The writing in Mission to Paris, sentence after sentence, page after page, is dazzling. If you are a John le Carr fan,…

— James Patterson

I did know that the book would end with a mind-boggling trial, but I didn't know exactly how it would turn out.…

— James Patterson

Kids say the No. 1 reason they don't read more is that they can't find books they like. Freedom of choice is…

— James Patterson

I believe we should spend less time worrying about the quantity of books children read and more time introducing them to quality…

— James Patterson

I have a number of writers I work with regularly. I write an outline for a book. The outlines are very specific…

— James Patterson

I do 30 to 40 books a year, so it's a fair amount of reading. Back and forth between nonfiction and fiction.…

— James Patterson