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" It's wonderful being an author and having so many kids enjoying my books. That's always been my dream job, and I feel very lucky to be able to do it. "
Rick Riordan
Feel
Lucky
Always
Related Quotes:
" For me, writing for kids is harder because they're a more discriminating audience. While adults might stay with you, if you lose your pacing or if you have pages of extraneous description, a kid's not going to do that. They will drop the book. "
Rick Riordan
Me
Lose
Book
" The Web or card experience is not at all going to replicate the book experience, nor is the book experience going to replicate the Web. "
Rick Riordan
Nor
Web
Book
" Back when I taught middle school and wrote adult mysteries, my students often asked me why I wasn't writing for kids. I never had a good answer for them. It took me a long time to realize they were right. "
Rick Riordan
Writing
Time
School
" As a teacher, I've never seen anything like 'Harry Potter.' That's why I smart when people talk about the 'next' 'Harry Potter.' There is no 'next' 'Harry Potter.' "
Rick Riordan
Talk
Smart
People
" I have to be careful. My readers are very detail-oriented, and if I make a mistake they'll call me on it. "
Rick Riordan
Careful
Be Careful
Call
" I think anytime you're writing to the middle grades, you're writing to young readers who are trapped in a number of ways between two worlds: between childhood and adulthood, between their friends and their parents. "
Rick Riordan
Think
Writing
You
" It's hard enough to be a middle-school kid, because you're dealing with so many facets of your identity - you're changing socially, you're changing physically, you're changing emotionally, everything is in flux, and to put race on top of that as well and have to figure out your racial identity is extremely hard. "
Rick Riordan
Racial
Identity
Kid
" I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the level of success I've had. I was just writing stories for my own sons. "
Rick Riordan
Feel
Writing
Success
" The older I get, the less I obsess about material stuff. In fact, stuff has become the enemy. There always seems to be more of it than I have storage in my house! "
Rick Riordan
Always
House
More
" I think kids want the same thing from a book that adults want - a fast-paced story, characters worth caring about, humor, surprises, and mystery. A good book always keeps you asking questions, and makes you keep turning pages so you can find out the answers. "
Rick Riordan
Think
Book
Caring
" I don't teach anymore, but I can still clearly see fifth period after lunch - that's a real tough time to teach. And I tried to imagine writing a story that would appeal to those kids - even when they're tired, even when they're bouncing off the walls. "
Rick Riordan
Writing
Tough
Tired
" Every child's taste is different. Don't worry if they're not reading 'War and Peace' at age 12. First, build a good foundation and a positive attitude about reading by letting them pick the stories they enjoy. Make friends with a bookseller or librarian. They are a wealth of information on finding books that kids enjoy. "
Rick Riordan
Attitude
Good
Peace
" Because I am kind of distracted, I don't tend to sit at my desk 9 to 5. It can be two hours a day, or, when I'm in the final editing stages, it can be 14 hours a day. "
Rick Riordan
Two
Kind
I Am
" Every child is different. I think it's important that we don't have maybe just one or two books that we're recommending to all children - but rather we cater the books to fit each individual child. "
Rick Riordan
Child
Important
Think
" I loved the idea of making history interesting for kids! When Scholastic approached me about 'The 39 Clues', I immediately started going through the 'greatest hits' from my years as a social studies teacher, and picked the historical characters and eras that most appealed to my students. "
Rick Riordan
History
Loved
Interesting
" I'm a teacher still, but with a much larger classroom. "
Rick Riordan
Still
Classroom
Larger
" I do like to wrap things up and leave some things to the readers' imagination. "
Rick Riordan
Leave
Up
Things
" I have a great deal of sympathy for reluctant readers because I was one. I would do anything to avoid reading. In my case, it wasn't until I was 13 and discovered the 'Lord of the Rings' that I learned to love reading. "
Rick Riordan
Love
Great
Reading
" Even if these stories are 3,000 years old, there's still so much about the characters, about the dilemmas, about their understanding of the universe that still resonates. The whole idea of order and chaos, which is really central to the ancient Egyptian understanding of the world, is still very much with us. "
Rick Riordan
Universe
World
Chaos
" I think children love reading, and they will make time for it if we put the right books into their hands. And I hope I get the chance to keep being one of the people that writes them. "
Rick Riordan
Reading
Time
Love
" I think that kids have a greater capacity for processing things than we give them credit for. "
Rick Riordan
Credit
Think
Things
" You know, how much order is good? And when does order become too restrictive? Is a little bit of chaos okay, or is chaos always an evil force? I mean, these are questions that any kid who's ever been in a school cafeteria can relate to. "
Rick Riordan
Good
Know
School
" I go back and research, say, every reference to the Gorgons, and I find what the classical writers said about them and it's so much richer than you might get in an average Greek mythology text. I feel like an archaeologist - I'm dusting off these things that people have not seen for thousands of years and bringing them into the modern world. "
Rick Riordan
People
Research
Say
" It's not easy. I got lots of rejections when I first started out. If you want to write, you have to believe in yourself and not give up. You have to do your best to practice and get better. "
Rick Riordan
Do Your Best
Believe In Yourself
Best
" I love Norse mythology - Thor and Odin and Loki - amazing characters. "
Rick Riordan
Characters
Amazing
Love
" I think the more you understand myths, the more you understand the roots of our culture and the more things will resonate. Do you have to know them? No, but certainly it is nice to recognise how deeply these things are embedded in our literature, our art. "
Rick Riordan
Culture
Roots
Know
" I saw 'The 39 Clues' as a potential vehicle for doing some education in a fun way - to take some of these amazing stories from history, dust them off and make them alive. "
Rick Riordan
Fun
Amazing
Doing
" I have more ideas than I'll ever be able to write in five lifetimes. "
Rick Riordan
Write
Able
Five
" Turkey, Australia, and Japan are three of my top destinations. "
Rick Riordan
Japan
Top
Three
" The Met is such a powerful place for me because it's a natural connection between the ancient world and the modern world. And when you're dealing with ancient mythology, trying to put a modern spin on it, you really can't do much better than to call on the Met. "
Rick Riordan
World
You
Powerful