David Morrell Quotes

A thriller becomes great when it carries a feeling of reality and truth.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.

One generation's idea of fast pace might be different from a later generation's.

You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, 'This is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I'm doing the best I can - buy me or not - but this is who I am as a writer.

As much as I like it when a book I'm writing speeds along, the downside can be that an author becomes too eager to finish and rushes the end. The end is even more important than the first page, and rushing can damage it.

" ... What if?" Through the alchemy of those two words, something new comes into the world.

A thriller must be thrilling. A mystery may or may not be a thriller depending on how much breathless emotion it has, as opposed to cerebral calculation.

Before I start a project, I always ask myself the following question. Why is this book worth a year of my life? There needs to be something about the theme, the technique, or the research that makes the time spent on it worthwhile.

As long as thriller authors teach us about our world, they'll be relevant.

At their best, thrillers not only entertain. Ideally they also reflect the society in which they are set, analyzing our fears and how we perceive the world.

I have a graduate degree from Penn State. I studied at Penn State under a noted Hemingway scholar, Philip Young. I had an interest in thrillers, and it occurred to me that Hemingway wrote many action scenes: the war scenes in 'A Farewell to Arms' and 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' come to mind. But the scenes don't feel pulpy.

His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing by the pump of a gas station at the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky.

Your obligation as writers is to distinguish yourself. … The ultimate result should be a book that you write that no one else could have written.

To all librarians everywhere, God bless you.

People who know various movie versions don't really know the story.