Alexi Zentner

“I believe that art elevates humanity. I feel incredibly privileged to be part of that.”

“If I think of a reader while I am writing, the only reader who really matters for me is my wife. It's most important to me that she likes what I write.”

“I liked Shakespeare in high school, but in university I spent a semester studying in London, and it was sort of in the middle of me falling deeply in love with literature, and I took a Shakespeare course with a professor who couldn't imagine anything more important than Shakespeare.”

“I started writing 'The Lobster Kings' the day after I sold my first novel, 'Touch.'”

“One of my oldest friends has a cottage on Smoke Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park, and it's one of my favorite places in the world.”

“If you don't try your hardest, and you're unsuccessful, you always have that excuse.”

“I had not expected to ever be in a position to able to say, 'Hey, see the magazine with J. Lo on the cover? They reviewed my book inside.'”

“There is no simple answer for what it means to be Canadian. There are a thousand answers that come together. But part of that is that there is a national mythology.”

“My children have stolen my dreams in a very literal sense. I've lost months in the minutes and hours that Sabine and Zoey have needed me at night, their thin, butterfly-beating hearts pushed against me in the darkness.”

“I get very tired of books that feel emotionally empty. I would much rather have writers err on the side of being overly sentimental than not. I think that the perfect balance is a story that moves you without being maudlin, but I don't enjoy books that are empty of emotion and there's no connection to the characters.”

“The worst day of writing is still better than the best day of telemarketing.”

“Ezekiel Boone's books, starting with 'The Hatching' series, are meant to be big, sprawling, smart, entertaining books that are fun above all else; the literary novels written under my real name, Alexi Zentner, are certainly a little more quiet.”

“If you take a cold, blunt view of most religions, and you sort of say, 'Well, here's the basis for it,' most of them sound crazy. It's the belief that makes them real. I was interested in that question: When does a belief become a myth? When does something you believe in become just a story?”

“If you realize early what your influence is, you can have a better understanding of what you are writing about.”

“As much as I love my daughters, I wasn't happy with only being a stay-at-home-dad, and my wife encouraged me to try, to really try, at being a writer. More than anything, I didn't want to let her down.”

“My daughters are both funny and smart and lots of fun. They play lacrosse, soccer, musical instruments, like to cook with me, and are naturals in the swimming pool. Honestly, though, what I like doing most with them is eating. I've worked really hard to make sure they are willing to try all sorts of different foods.”

“There's very little that's comparable to seeing the spark in a student's face when she gets something that she's been struggling with.”

“Growing up in Waterloo, the Governor General's Award wasn't something I even thought to wish for.”

“My wife has been incredibly supportive of me as a writer. Trying really hard to make sure I get the space and time I need to work as a writer and being willing to make some of the sacrifices that you have to make to live the life of an artist.”

“The story of trying to live up to the myth is more interesting than the myth itself.”