A Quote by Wayne Gretzky

I really wanted to write a book [99: Stories of the Game] on the tradition and history of the league, where kids can pick it up and read it and learn things and say, "Geez, I didn't know that. That's pretty cool."
The way I work: I pick a country. I learn the political history - I mean I really learn it; I read until it sinks in. Once I read the political history, I can project and find the clandestine history. And then I people it with the characters.
When you learn to read and write, it opens up opportunities for you to learn so many other things. When you learn to read, you can then read to learn. And it's the same thing with coding. If you learn to code, you can code to learn. Now some of the things you can learn are sort of obvious. You learn more about how computers work.
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.
You look at any roster and you say, 'Geez, he's pretty good. He's pretty good. He's talented. He comes off the bench?' All of a sudden, it's, 'Geez, that's a pretty good roster they got right there.'
I mean everything's a lot more smoother. It's just calm. IN the beginning, I had the typical attitude of a young rapper makin money... ya know I was the partyin guy... I was the guy wit the girls... all the extra that came wit the game...it's up to the artist to know when to say when. You can't live that kind of lifestyle forever. ...I learn from the other people's mistake. I know when to say no. You learn to make the right decisions and pick the right choices. That's all that's really changed.
I never had the opportunity to pick up a golf club in school, and I think it is a cool thing for kids. Getting clubs in kids' hands is the only way to grow this game.
I've always said if somebody wrote a book and they took their whole life to learn that knowledge in that book, why you won't just read that book to learn what they know? I have never seen anyone take a book combining Faith, personal Development and life stories that are just so practical and relatable to our own generation.
I think I write for reluctant readers. Of course I want everyone to enjoy my books, but if the kids in the back row who normally don't pick up a book are engaged with what I'm writing, along with the kids who are big readers anyway, then I really feel like I've done my job.
I get letters from two kinds of readers. History buffs, who love to read history and biography for fun, and then kids who want to be writers but who rarely come out and say so in their letters. You can tell by the questions they ask - How did you get your ?rst book published? How long do you spend on a book? So I guess those are the readers that I'm writing for - kids who enjoy that kind of book, because they're interested in history, in other people's lives, in what has happened in the world. I believe that they're the ones who are going to be the movers and shakers.
The best way to get kids to read a book is to say: 'This book is not appropriate for your age, and it has all sorts of horrible things in it like sex and death and some really big and complicated ideas, and you're better off not touching it until you're all grown up. I'm going to put it on this shelf and leave the room for a while. Don't open it.
I'd say the purest experience for the movie is not to have read the book because I think when you've read the book you're just ticking off boxes. I think that after you see the movie, reading the book is a cool thing. I always say the movie's not meant to replace the book. That's ridiculous. I'm a huge fan of the book.
The best way to learn to write is to read in the genre you might be interested in; then, you need to actually sit down and write. In a lot of cases, the first book you write will not get published. Do not get hung up on that. Start a second book.
Sometimes [people] say the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. In my case, I am pretty fortunate. [ My kids]'re pretty balanced, cool kids, going through pretty much the same thing all the other kids go through. There's nothing unique about me as a parent. I am a parent. My kids are kids. We do the best we can do. I don't think they know a lot about what I do, other than that I am in this crazy band, Mötley Crüe.
When you write a book, and you argue a problem is complicated and multidimensional, it's very easy to read a slice of that book and say, 'Well, this is the part that either confirms or really challenges my biases, so that's what I'm going to say the entire book is about.'
If you are going to write, say, fantasy - stop reading fantasy. You've already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you're going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit.
I think that if you look at all of the books that have ever been written about people working in the White House, they're sort of the opposite of my book. And I think that so many people want to write a book that sort of memorializes their place in history. And I wanted to write something for all of the women who are like me. I grew up in upstate New York, I graduated high school with 70 other people and didn't ever know that anything like this would have really been an option for me. So I wanted other young women — and men — to know that just being you is plenty.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!