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" I wrote six pilots, none of which ever got picked up. When you stop trying, it then it falls in your lap. "
George R. R. Martin
Your
Up
You
Related Quotes:
" I'm a huge fan of Tolkien. I read those books when I was in junior high school and high school, and they had a profound effect on me. I'd read other fantasy before, but none of them that I loved like Tolkien. "
George R. R. Martin
Loved
Fantasy
Me
" Nothing bores me more than books where you read two pages and you know exactly how it's going to come out. I want twists and turns that surprise me, characters that have a difficult time and that I don't know if they're going to live or die. "
George R. R. Martin
You
Know
Live
" When the writing is going really well, whole days and weeks go by, and I suddenly realise I have all these unpaid bills and, my God, I haven't unpacked, and the suitcase has been sitting there for three weeks. "
George R. R. Martin
Sitting
Days
God
" Don't write outlines; I hate outlines. "
George R. R. Martin
Hate
Write
Outlines
" There has to be a level of joy of what you're doing. "
George R. R. Martin
Joy
You
Level
" You want people to be eager for your book; the downside is when the people forget the series even exists. "
George R. R. Martin
Book
Your
You
" I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are, they're still human, and the human heart is still in conflict with the self. "
George R. R. Martin
Heart
Conflict
Always
" Whenever I switch from one character to another, there's always a few days where I really struggle because I'm changing voices and I'm changing ways of looking at the world. I'm not just flicking a switch; it's harder process than that. "
George R. R. Martin
Struggle
World
Character
" I tend to write one character at a time. But I don't write the entirety of one character at a time. "
George R. R. Martin
Tend
Write
Character
" Yes - 90% of fantasy is crap. And so is 90% of science fiction and 90% of mystery fiction and 90% of literary fiction. "
George R. R. Martin
Science
Fantasy
Yes
" I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separated at birth. "
George R. R. Martin
Birth
Always
Fantasy
" I had an encyclopedia with a list of flags in the back, so I would look at all these flags of China and Liberia and England and Denmark and whatever, and I learned all the different flags, and I tried to imagine what it would be like to be voyaging on some of these ships. "
George R. R. Martin
Look
Tried
Like
" One of the things I love, and I'm a voracious reader as well as a writer, is books that surprise me, that are not predictable. "
George R. R. Martin
Books
Well
Things
" You always try to do your own thing. One of the things I wanted to do was to write a book that combines some of the best traits of contemporary fantasy with some of the traits of the historical novel. "
George R. R. Martin
Own
Fantasy
You
" As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy. "
George R. R. Martin
Hate
Character
Great
" I was a novelist first. But in the mid-'80s, I did work in television for ten years. And yes, that was frequently the reaction to my scripts. People would say, 'You know, George, this is great. We love it, a terrific script, but it would cost five times our budget to shoot this.' "
George R. R. Martin
Work
Love
People
" I spent a whole summer working on what proved to be 'A Game of Thrones'. "
George R. R. Martin
Whole
Spent
Game
" All fiction has to have a certain amount of truth in it to be powerful. "
George R. R. Martin
Truth
Powerful
Fiction
" I believe that a writer learns from every story he writes, and when you try different things, you learn different lessons. Working with other writers, as in Hollywood or in a shared world series, will also strengthen your skills, by exposing you to new ways of seeing the work, and different approaches to certain creative challenges. "
George R. R. Martin
Work
Story
Creative
" If you go all the way back, I've always written science-fiction, I've always written fantasy, I've always written horror stories and monster stories, right from the beginning of my career. I've always moved back and forth between the genres. I don't really recognise that there's a significant difference between them in some senses. "
George R. R. Martin
Back
You
Career
" If you're going to write about war, which my books are about, wars are nasty things. I think it's sort of a cheap, easy way out to write a war story in which no one ultimately dies. "
George R. R. Martin
You
Easy
Way
" The distinction between literary and genre fiction is stupid and pernicious. It dates back to a feud between Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James. James won, and it split literature into two streams. But it's a totally false dichotomy. "
George R. R. Martin
Literature
Two
Stupid
" With a book I am the writer and I am also the director and I'm all of the actors and I'm the special effects guy and the lighting technician: I'm all of that. So if it's good or bad, it's all up to me. "
George R. R. Martin
Bad
Book
Good
" I have some other novels I want to write. I have a lot of short stories - I love the short story. "
George R. R. Martin
Write
Love
Short
" When I'm writing from a character's viewpoint, in essence I become that character; I share their thoughts, I see the world through their eyes and try to feel everything they feel. "
George R. R. Martin
Character
Writing
Thoughts
" I have a huge emotional attachment to characters I've created, especially the viewpoint characters. "
George R. R. Martin
Viewpoint
Emotional
Attachment
" I try to make the readers feel they've lived the events of the book. Just as you grieve if a friend is killed, you should grieve if a fictional character is killed. You should care. If somebody dies and you just go get more popcorn, it's a superficial experience isn't it? "
George R. R. Martin
Character
Book
Friend
" I worked out of Hollywood for 10 years and I had my heart broken half a dozen times, so I know all the things that can go wrong. "
George R. R. Martin
Heart
Hollywood
Know
" I can see a scene in my head, and when I try to get it down in words on paper, the words are clunky; the scene is not coming across right. So frustrating. And there are days where it keeps flowing. Open the floodgates, and there it is. Pages and pages coming. Where the hell does this all come from? I don't know. "
George R. R. Martin
I Can
Down
Words
" The vast majority of writers out there, they finish their books, and no one cares whether their book is late or ever comes out at all. And then it comes out, and two reviews are published, and it sells 12 copies. "
George R. R. Martin
Late
Finish
Books