Jean M. Auel famous quotes

You learn to write by writing, and by reading and thinking about how writers have created their characters and invented their stories. If you are not a reader, don't even think about being a writer.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Reading #Writing #Character

Life sometimes gets in the way of writing.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Writing #Way #Sometimes

She lifted the drooping muzzle with both hands...It was a special embrace saved for special occasions.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Horse #Hands #Special

I could write historical fiction, or science fiction, or a mystery but since I find it fascinating to research the clues of some little know period and develop a story based on that, I will probably continue to do it.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Writing #Historical #Fiction

Life is neither static nor unchanging. With no individuality, there can be no change, no adaptation and, in an inherently changing world, any species unable to adapt is also doomed.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Individuality #World #Life Is

I'm just writing a story that I want to read.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Writing #Stories #Want

Each book has been different and has been challenging in its own way to write.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Book #Writing #Challenges

And that's how I start myself. I usually go back a couple of pages, maybe to the beginning of the chapter, and I start reading. And as I'm reading, I'm tweaking - putting in a different word, changing the syntax, putting that clause over there, you know that sort of thing.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Couple #Reading #Different

I really fell in love with Africa.
-- Jean M. Auel

I had an idea for a story about a young woman who was living with people who were different, not just superficially different - such as hair colour, or eye colour, or skin colour - but different in some significant way.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Eye #Hair #Ideas

I have been a reader of Science Fiction and Fantasy for a long time, since I was 11 or 12 I think, so I understand it and I'm not at all surprised that readers of the genre might enjoy my books.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Book #Thinking #Long

From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Writing #Ideas #Stories

I don't write for publishers, certainly not for critics, and not for readers, But I am delighted that so many people have found my books enjoyable and want to continue to read them.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Book #Writing #People

It took some time to gather the research and develop it into the storyline, and to finally finish an origin myth poem that I had been working on for twenty years.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Years #Twenties #Research

Though my books are written from a historical perspective, I have goon so far back that I am in the realm of prehistorical speculation rather than simple historical fact to weave my stories around.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Book #Simple #Perspective

I think of my books as mainstream and that's were most people who read them look for them in book stores.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Book #Thinking #People

They stared at each other, wanting each other, drawn to each other, but their silent shout of love went unheard in the roar of misunderstanding, and the clatter of culturally ingrained beliefs.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Belief #Silent #Misunderstanding

Science Fiction is not just about the future of space ships travelling to other planets, it is fiction based on science and I am using science as my basis for my fiction, but it's the science of prehistory - palaeontology and archaeology - rather than astronomy or physics.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Journey #Space #Fiction

The idea led me into the research, which continues to give me more ideas for the story.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Ideas #Giving #Stories

Again Creb grunted. It was the usual noncommittal comment used by men when responding to a woman. It carried only enough meaning to indicate the woman had been understood, without acknowledging too much significance in what she said.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Men #Too Much #Usual

When you are alone, you have all the time in the world to practice whistling like a bird. When there is no one in the world you can turn to, a horse or .even a lion may give you companionship. When you don't know if there is anyone in the world like you, you seek contact with something living however you can
-- Jean M. Auel

#Horse #Practice #Giving

The other mammoths were as protective of the dying as they were of newborns, and they gathered around tying to make the fallen one get up. When all was over, they buried the dead ancestor under piles of dirt, grass, leaves, or snow. Mammoths were even known to bury other dead animals, including humans.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Animal #Snow #Dying

But when did you see her, talk to me? When did you see her go into the cave? Why did you threaten to strike a spirit? You still don't understand, do you? You acknowledged her, Broud, she has beaten you. You did everything you could to her, you even cursed her. She's dead, and still she won. She was a woman, and she had more courage than you, Broud, more determination, more self-control. She was more man than you are. Ayla should have been the son of my mate.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Determination #Son #Men

If you want to fall in love, you can't hold everything in. You have to open up, take that risk. You'll be hurt sometimes, but if you don't, you'll never be happy. The one you find may not be the kind of woman you expected to fall in love with, but it wont matter, you'll love her for exactly what she is.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Hurt #Falling In Love #Love You

Ayla, I looked for you all my life and didn't know I was looking. You are everything I ever wanted, everything I ever dreamed of in a woman, and more. You are a fascinating enigma, a paradox. You are totally honest, open; you hide nothing: yet you are the most mysterious woman I've ever met.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Mysterious #Honest #Paradox

She loved him, more than she could ever find words for, but this love he felt for her was not quite the same. It wasn't so much stronger, as more demanding, more insistent. As though he feared he would lose that which he had finally won.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Fear #Stronger

You weren't being punished. You were waiting for me.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Waiting

No, my publisher has always done the marketing.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Marketing #Done

My fiction is reviewed by the mainstream press, by science fiction periodicals, romance magazines, small press publications and various other journals, including some usually devoted to archaeological and other science material.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Romance #Fiction #Magazines

I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Writing #Stories #Please

I can't tell you any more than any other writer can tell you why they write, and I don't know what my influences are.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Writing #Influence

I probably read 100 times more than I write, but that way when I move my characters through it, I know.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Moving #Writing #Character

Of the two, I would think of my work as closer to Science Fiction than Fantasy.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Thinking #Two #Fiction

I have heard Science Fiction and Fantasy referred to as the fiction of ideas, and I like that definition, but it's the mainstream public that chooses my books for the most part.
-- Jean M. Auel

#Book #Ideas #Fiction