114 Quotes by clive cussler

I honestly thought I probably did sell 100 million books. That doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me.

I almost write to formula, because there's a historical beginning, then the plots get convoluted.

When I was in the military, I socked away $100 every month. When I was discharged in 1954, I got home at 5 A.M. By 10 A.M., I was pulling out of a foreign car dealership in Pasadena in a new Jaguar XK120.

I'm always interested in something that's missing.

I have a large collection of town cars because when I was just a snipe in the gutter, growing up in Los Angeles, a town car drove by. I remember running in the house to get my mother so she could see it. It was utterly magnificent.

I was always a history buff.

I'd heard about a shipwreck that was never found - John Paul Jones' Bonhomme Richard. So I thought, 'Well, I'll go look for it.'

I was driving by an auto auction one day, and they were auctioning off a beautiful Hispano-Suiza. I started bidding even though I hadn't even signed up with the officials. The last bid was $50,000, and it was mine. And I thought, 'My God, what have I done? I've never spent more than $500 in my life.' That was the first one.

If you have some natural talent and really want to write, you should read the books of someone who's very successful in your genre. You don't want to plagiarize, but you want to learn from that author.