Top 77 Quotes & Sayings by Clive Cussler

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American novelist Clive Cussler.

Last updated on December 22, 2024.

Clive Eric Cussler was an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have reached The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than 20 times. Cussler was the founder and chairman of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which has discovered more than 60 shipwreck sites and numerous other notable underwater wrecks. He was the sole author or lead author of more than 80 books.

American - Novelist | Born: July 15, 1931

Source: Wikipedia

I had horrible experiences in Hollywood.

Clive Cussler

They botched 'Raise the Titanic' so badly that I waited 20 years to do it again.

Clive Cussler

My friends joke that I raised the Titanic and never left the Rockies.

Clive Cussler

I'm considered the 'old daddy of adventure.'

Clive Cussler

I'm not a great writer of literature. I'm an entertainer.

Clive Cussler

When I first started writing, I was in advertising at the time, I was doing most of my writing on weekends. I had studied most of the other series heroes and I figured it would be fun for mine to be different and put him in and around water. So I dreamed up Dirk Pitt.

Clive Cussler

They screwed up 'Raise the Titanic!' so badly, I stay away from Hollywood. I won't cheat my readers with another piece of crap.

Clive Cussler

She had the kids during the day and I would have them at night. That way they were never alone. I would put the kids to bed, and then I had nothing to do and nobody to talk to, so I would write.

Clive Cussler

I don't think of myself as a writer.

Clive Cussler

I didn't have the great American novel burning inside me, but I felt I could try my hand at popular fiction.

Clive Cussler

If ever a car was created by designers with dreams of grandeur, it had to be the 1958 Buick Limited: the heftiest, highest-priced and most opulent monster ever to hit the street in the '50s.

Clive Cussler

I almost write to formula, because there's a historical beginning, then the plots get convoluted.

Clive Cussler

My books are easy to read. No folderol.

Clive Cussler

I honestly thought I probably did sell 100 million books. That doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me.

Clive Cussler

I'm not working on the Great American Novel. All I am doing, I hope, is entertaining readers.

Clive Cussler

I'd give my left arm for the Merrimack.

Clive Cussler

Maybe some day they'll find me behind the computer, just bones and cobwebs.

Clive Cussler

I can't retire. My readers won't let me.

Clive Cussler

I can appreciate other writers' works.

Clive Cussler

If you are a writer, Saturday and Sunday don't mean anything.

Clive Cussler

Nobody gives a damn about the Merrimac. You know how it is. Winners write the history books.

Clive Cussler

I'd heard about a shipwreck that was never found - John Paul Jones' Bonhomme Richard. So I thought, 'Well, I'll go look for it.'

Clive Cussler

After putting the kids to bed, I would think about what I wanted to write.

Clive Cussler

It's a job. I entertain my readers. I get up in the morning, and I start typing.

Clive Cussler

There is no greater unknown than the sea and no greater mystery than a lost ship.

Clive Cussler

If it ain't fun, it ain't worth doing.

Clive Cussler

When I type 'The End,' it's like being paroled from prison.

Clive Cussler

Shipwrecks are incredible mysteries.

Clive Cussler

It's a quirk of mine; I love neat garages.

Clive Cussler

I have a large collection of town cars because when I was just a snipe in the gutter, growing up in Los Angeles, a town car drove by. I remember running in the house to get my mother so she could see it. It was utterly magnificent.

Clive Cussler

A lot of people don't understand why I'm not out diving for treasure.

Clive Cussler

People have said I belong in a rubber room because I look for wrecks, and when I find them, I just do a survey. I don't look for treasure or artifacts.

Clive Cussler

When I started writing, I just hoped for a nice little paperback series.

Clive Cussler

I'm writing for entertainment. I like people to reach the end and feel they got their money's worth.

Clive Cussler

Matthew's all right. Originally, I wanted Errol Flynn, but McConaughey should be good as Dirk Pitt.

Clive Cussler

I was always a history buff.

Clive Cussler

After the Dirk Pitt books became best-sellers, I could afford to buy the more exotic examples of classic autos.

Clive Cussler

I like snappy dialogue and short descriptions and lots of action.

Clive Cussler

I'm not a dedicated writer in the sense of Stephen King.

Clive Cussler

I never had a highfalutin' view of what I write.

Clive Cussler

Some men play golf. I've got this crazy thing about maintaining our nation's maritime heritage.

Clive Cussler

I was driving by an auto auction one day, and they were auctioning off a beautiful Hispano-Suiza. I started bidding even though I hadn't even signed up with the officials. The last bid was $50,000, and it was mine. And I thought, 'My God, what have I done? I've never spent more than $500 in my life.' That was the first one.

Clive Cussler

I'm always interested in something that's missing.

Clive Cussler

The fascination for me is searching the unknown for a mystery.

Clive Cussler

My forte is the plotting. You sit down, and you work out a plot.

Clive Cussler

I purchased a 1955 Rolls-Royce that my wife liked because it was new the year we were married. Then came a 1926 Hispano-Suiza Cabriolet that I bought at my first classic car auction after I had three martinis. As more cars were added, I had to buy a warehouse.

Clive Cussler

I was the kid who stared out the window. I fantasized myself on the deck of pirate ships - Cussler at the bridge.

Clive Cussler

My job is to entertain the readers in such a manner that, when they reach the end of the book, they feel like they've gotten their money's worth.

Clive Cussler

Some people are drawn to a van Gogh or a Rembrandt. Some are attracted to exotic guns. Coins. Stamps. I am attracted to cars.

Clive Cussler

I don't like interior decorating. It looks gorgeous, but it doesn't have that lived-in look.

Clive Cussler

The culinary scene in Phoenix is incredible.

Clive Cussler

I want it to be easy to read. I'm not writing exotic literature.

Clive Cussler

The truth is ships and aircraft have been vanishing with tragic regularity in every part of the world since they were invented.

Clive Cussler

There's no literary merit in my books.

Clive Cussler

I've always liked Mexican food.

Clive Cussler

I am not like Stephen King, who writes one book, then writes another. I finish a book and go off and... look for wrecks. Then, six months later, I might start another book.

Clive Cussler

When I was in the military, I socked away $100 every month. When I was discharged in 1954, I got home at 5 A.M. By 10 A.M., I was pulling out of a foreign car dealership in Pasadena in a new Jaguar XK120.

Clive Cussler

NUMA is basically trying to preserve our maritime heritage by finding lost shipwrecks of historical significance before they are gone.

Clive Cussler

There's a little bit of Pitt in everybody.

Clive Cussler

Either you've got the bug, or you haven't. There are many things I'd rather be doing than writing a book.

Clive Cussler