76 Quotes by Rodman Philbrick

As a young, ambitious novelist, writing for kids never crossed my mind.

As a writer, I'm convinced that encouraging children to write fiction, to hook into that marvelous machine called the imagination, has to be good for everyone.

As a kid, books were my great escape and my salvation.

You can't mess around with young readers - you have to cut straight to the heart of the story. The character can be complex, the plot can have some surprises, but the emotions have to be clear.

I wanted to make the world of 'The Last Book in the Universe' as real as possible, so I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I decided the world would be a very different place, but people would be pretty much the same.

I'm not a playwright; I'm a writer who loves theater.

I have vivid memories of junior high school. I didn't quite know how to deal with kids and make friends and all of that. If you talked to people who knew me at the time, they'd think I was a popular kid in school. But boy, I didn't feel that.

I am an avid fisherman, and my daily schedule is to write in the morning and then go fishing in the afternoon. In Maine, I fish mostly for stripers, and in the Florida Keys, I go after all kinds of game fish.

I assumed 'Freak the Mighty' was probably too weird and melodramatic to find a publisher. I certainly never expected the book to have a profound influence on my career as a writer, but indeed it has.