A Quote by Brian Keene

Know your genre. Know your history. Read a book.

Brian Keene

Quote Topics

Book Genre History Know Read Your

Quote Author

Brian Keene
American - Author
Born: September 22, 1967

Dear Mia, What can I say? I don't know all that much about romance novels, but I think you must be the Stephen King of the genre. Your book is hot. Thanks for letting me read it. Anyone who doesn't want to publish it is a fool. Anyway, since I know it's your birthday, and I also know you never remember to back anything up, here's a little something I made for you. It would be a shame if Ransom My Heart got lost before it ever saw the light of day because your hard drive crashed. See you tonight. Love, Michael

Meg Cabot

But nothing is solid and permanent. Our lives are raised on the shakiest foundations. You don't need to read history books to know that. You only have to know the history of your own life.

Ron Rash

Write what you want to read. So many people think they need to write a particular kind of book, or imitate a successful style, in order to be published. I've known people who felt they had to model their book on existing blockbusters, or write in a genre that's supposed to be "hot right now" in order to get agents and publishers interested. But if you're writing in a genre you don't like, or modeling yourself on a book you don't respect, it'll show through. You're your first, most important reader, so write the book that reader really wants to read.

Cassandra Clare

Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.

Angela Carter

Meditation is a journey to know yourself. Knowing yourself has many layers. Start knowing your bodily discomforts. Know your success, know your failures. Know your fears. Know your irritations. Know your pleasures, joy and happiness. Know your mental wounds. Go deeper and examine every feeling you have.

Amit Ray

Do not feel trapped by the facts of your history. Your history is not some set of sacred facts. History is an interpretation, and your history is yours to interpret. To know the history and then reinterpret it gives you additional depth.

Harriet Rubin

Every time you hear someone read your book and liked your book, you're never sure whether that's going to follow with a similar remark from someone else. Perhaps I have low expectations, but whenever I hear someone say, 'I liked your book,' I don't know if it's going to happen again.

Joshua Ferris

Know whose you are and you'll know who you are. Walk in your authentic identity as determined by your Creator. And, before you try to live without instructions as to what your identity really is read the owner's manual daily; the Bible. It's the best advice anyone ever gave me. Read it and it will change your life for the better, forever.

Cynthia Garrett

One of the things that always drives any practitioner of journalism crazy is you'll run it people who say why doesn't the media cover this or that? Well of course the media covered it. Why didn't you read about it? And, you know, it's, you know, there you are, it's not the journalist's job to knock down your door, you know, punch the URL into your computer and force you to stop watching the Kardashians and to read, you know, a report on integrity in government instead, it's your job.

David Frum

What you and I might rate as an absolute disaster, God may rate as a pimple-level problem that will pass. He views your life the way you view a movie after you've read the book. When something bad happens, you feel the air sucked out of the theater. Everyone else gasps at the crisis on the screen. Not you. Why? You've read the book. You know how the good guy gets out of the tight spot. God views your life with the same confidence. He's not only read your story...he wrote it.

Max Lucado

I love the horror genre. I consider myself a genre filmmaker. I love genre, but I think there's a certain amount of complacency that comes with watching a genre film; people know what the devices are. They know what the tropes are. They know the conventions.

Ari Aster

I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems by Maya Angelou, or I'll just read some Mary Oliver - this is a book that was given to me for Christmas. No particular genre. And I read in French, and I read in German, and I read in English. I love to see how other people use language.

Jessye Norman

The second book, which was probably more from a professional standpoint - when I read Junot Díaz's Drown, I was like, Oh my god, you can write these stories and people will actually read them beyond your own little community. This guy's book is blowing up and it seems like [he's writing about] the neighborhood that I grew up in. That was a big deal. I read that in graduate school, so that's when I was really taking writing seriously, but I didn't know you could do it. I didn't know you can actually be an author. It was a weird epiphany.

Matt de la Pena

I was on a panel with Marshall McLuhan in Canada. Someone says, 'Mr. McLuhan, I read your book, and I disagree with you.' And he says, 'Oh, you read my book? Then you only know half the story.'

James Rosenquist

Somebody comes to your house. You know they're coming, so it's not a surprise. And they give you an envelope that has your scenes in it. And they sit in the car outside for a half an hour while you read your scenes, then they ring your doorbell and you give your scenes back. Then you shoot the movie a few weeks later or something. The next time you see your scenes is the night before you start shooting. I never read the script [Blue Jasmine], so I didn't really know what it was about.