Quotes By Laurell K. Hamilton

You'd think a sociopath assassin wouldn't have a fan following but he does.

I started off like everyone else does, slogging but having a compulsion to put words on paper. I didn't write or read horror or fantasy, other than children's fantasy, until I was in my teens.

I like conventions. I like meeting and greeting. I'm perched on that edge where I'm getting more attention than I quite know what to do with, though.

For me the Anita series is built like a mystery series, which means that as much as possible each book stands alone, so you have a mystery to solve from the beginning to the end of the book.

Nothing wrong with making money or doing what you need to do to sell, but I think it shows when you're writing something to pay the bills and when you're writing something because it's really your version of the world.

One of my rules is never explain. A writer is a lot like a magician, if you explain how the trick works then a lot of the magic turns mundane.

I am not a morning person.

Readers respond to every genre intensely, if it's a genre that appeals to them. Again, who can say why anyone enjoys horror and dark fantasy? If I can't answer the question for myself, I wouldn't dream of trying to answer it for others.

I love animals, always have, and it seemed natural to help the ASPCA. Animals have no voice of their own, so we have to be that voice.

I think that my vampires in general were influenced by my being allowed to watch the Hammer vampire films. Vampire Circus, also shown as Circus of Fear, was one of those movies.

I'm not terribly fond of soapboxes.

Here's the secret to finishing that first book. Don't rewrite as you go.

I try not to worry about rewriting books that worked well the first time. I'm too busy writing new books to worry about things that are already in print.

Now that I'm being very successful, publishers are trying to mainstream me, but I'm unabashedly genre. It's what I like to read, what I like to write.

Everyone spends their lives trying to balance their world between good and evil.

By 17, I was submitting to publications and collecting my first rejection slips.

I always treated writing as a profession, never as a hobby. If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will.

I'm more influenced by my own interests than anyone else's. Writers have to entertain themselves, or they can't entertain anyone else.

You either mellow at 30, or your head explodes - take your choice.

I think like a detective.

If I'd been easily discouraged, I could have been a one-hit wonder.

It was just you had to be strong, and if you weren't strong you're a victim and you're not going to make it. That was the reality when I was growing up.

I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.

The fey in this country keep to themselves, and are a separate nation, much like the American Indians, but with even more autonomy.

I feel that if you are blessed, or lucky enough, to be doing well, you should help others.

My writing style is very sensual, as in sensory detail.

I am a very linear thinker, so I write beginning to end. I write hundreds of pages per book that never make it into print.

Some people just don't seem to understand the concept of fiction. It is fiction; it ain't true, folks.

My characters surprise me constantly. My characters are like my friends - I can give them advice, but they don't have to take it. If your characters are real, then they surprise you, just like real people.

If you're open to it, New Orleans will teach you about yourself, but if you want to hide from who you really are, the city will help you do that, too.