Explore Quotes by James Patterson

As we go through this transition where a lot more people will be reading on devices, nobody is paying enough attention to make sure it's a smooth transition. I believe we still need places where people can go to handle, hold and talk about books, get information about what books are out there, and so on.

My life revolves around my writing, my wife and my son.

Let's face it: Most of us don't realize it, but we are failing our kids as reading role models. The best role models are in the home: brothers, fathers, grandfathers; mothers, sisters, grandmothers. Moms and dads, it's important that your kids see you reading. Not just books - reading the newspaper is good, too.

I love this idea of expanding the game universe. It has been limited. I guess probably because the genre was so successful, and the people who were creating those games made so much money at it they just had no desire to sort of open it up.

The fact is that our kids aren't reading books - or frankly, much of anything lately. Schools are under funded, some schools even closing their libraries. Parents have to realize that it's their job, and not the school's job, to get kids into the habit of reading for fun.

People like to talk more than they like to act. They like to sit there and complain and vent. Somehow they think that changes things, when it doesn't.

I love the idea of expanding the universe of games to some extent. At one point, they were kind of limited to boys, fanboys and whatever. I like the idea of liberation for games.

There is a lot to be said for collaboration, and it should be seen as just another way to do things as it is in other forms of writing, such as for television, where it is standard practice.

Schools and parents can team up to find books that kids will really get excited about - that will make them say, 'That was a great experience. Now I know why people get excited about reading.'

Generally I find that kids ask better questions than you get with adults. Something that kids will do a lot is, they're so nervous, and they're not really paying attention, so they'll ask the same question someone just asked. And you're trying to be nice and not embarrass them any more than they are already.

I don't think about an industry or building things, but somebody says you're lucky if you find something you like to do, which is true, and then it's a miracle if you get paid to do it.

Kids don't read as much as you'd like them to, just in terms of seeing the world from different perspectives. I mean, that's the great thing about books, still. Here's television, here are the movies, and it's pretty limited in terms of the perspectives.

A lot of writers fall in love with their sentences or their construction of sentences, and sometimes that's great, but not everybody is Gabriel Garcia Marquez or James Joyce. A lot of people like to pretend that they are, and they wind up not giving people a good read or enlightening them.

When I was 26, I wrote my first mystery, 'The Thomas Berryman Number', and it was turned down by, I don't know, 31 publishers. Then it won an Edgar for Best First Novel. Go figure.

A lot of people like the idea of eternal love and eternal romance. The notion of love that is more profound and deeper because it is eternal is very powerful.

This is what I believe is most important: getting good books into the hands of kids - books that will make them want to say, 'Wow, that was great. Give me another one to read.'

I always figured there would be a kid audience and an adult audience, and there is. That's true for 'Hunger Games' and 'Twilight' and 'Harry Potter.' And 'Maximum Ride,' for sure. In particular what happens is a lot of parents share the books with their kids, and the mom has read it, and the kids, and they talk about it.

You know, I remember watching Morgan Freeman when he did the two Alex Cross movies, and he's so confident that he's going to knock the scene dead. And I'm really confident that I can tell a good story now, so I just don't worry about things.

I get up every morning and chop wood, and I pretty much do it seven days a week, and I like to do it. I still have time for my wife and my son, who's 14, and at this point, my head is still above water.

This summer, I'll be bringing out a mystery that involves a young lawyer and a court scene the likes of which I don't think you've ever seen. Hollywood said this is James Patterson meets John Grisham.

There are a lot of things we as individuals can't do much about. We can't solve global warming as individuals, or health care problems, but as individuals, most of us can get our kids reading. We can do that.