Bruce Coville

“I know what I'm going to write for the next three years. It's frustrating, because if I get a good new idea, I have to put it aside.”

“Most of all, I love being a storyteller. And yes, I want to make a good living, but I'm not always driven by the best commercial sense.”

“When I was a kid, I read books that made me laugh but also made me shiver in terror. I wanted to make books that made other people feel the same way.”

“How in the world do you tellyour wife that her mother was born a unicon?”

“Like most people, I was not able to start selling my stories right away. So I had many other jobs along the way to becoming a writer, including toy maker, gravedigger, cookware salesman, and assembly line worker. Eventually, I became an elementary teacher and worked with second and fourth graders.”

“I tend to be more of a novel writer. In fact, some of my novels started out as short stories, and I just got carried away! I think some of my best writing is in the short story form, but novels come more naturally to me.”

“In terms of age, I think I've covered about as wide a range as is possible, having written everything from picture books to early chapter books to middle grade novels to YA to one adult novel - and having been editor and lead writer for a magazine for retired people!”

“I feel like a very lucky person. From the time I was young, I had a dream of becoming a writer. Now that dream has come true, and I am able to make my living doing something I really love.”

“Ideas are all around you - everything gives you ideas. But the real source is the part of your brain that dreams.”

“The first time I can remember thinking that I would like to be a writer came in sixth grade, when our teacher Mrs. Crandall gave us an extended period of time to write a long story. I loved doing it. I started working seriously at becoming a writer when I was seventeen.”

“Every book is like starting over again. I've written books every way possible - from using tight outlines to writing from the seat of my pants. Both ways work.”

“My writing works best when I remember that bookish child who adored reading and gear the work toward him.”

“Still, the painful death of that unicorn had been satisfying to watch”

“Hey, Geekoid!" yelled Duncan Dougal, "Why do you read so much? Don't you know how to watch TV?”

“I grew up around the corner from my grandparents' dairy farm, which was three miles outside of a small town called Phoenix.”

“Lights and darks. And suddenly i was here, where everything seems strange. And I don't know why. Like the Fox and the Crow, I don't know the whole story yet. But that's a good reason to go on, don't you think?" "Go where?" said the Scarecrow. "Go forward," said the girl. "See something. Learn something. Figure it out. We won't ever get the whole thing, I bet, but we'll get something. And then we'll have something to tell when we're old about what happened to us when we were young." "Now?" said the Scarecrow. "Can you tell it now?" "After," said the girl. "We have to have the BEFORE first, and that's life" "And what's life?" said the scarecrow. "Moving," said the girl. "Moving on. Shall we move on? Will you come with me?”

“But, really, why does anyone create? You feel a...a restlessness inside, a need to make something new, something no one has ever seen before. You want to add to the beauty and the richness of the world with a gift, an offering that is uniquely yours. It's an act of selfishness and generosity, all rolled into one.”

“I don’t want Tiamat to go back,” said Jeremy sullenly. “I want her to stay here with me.”Miss Priest laughed. It was not a horrible laugh at all. “What a terrible idea!” she said. “Why do you want her to stay?”Because I love her. I don’t want to lose her.”Miss Priest reached out and took his chin in her hand. She looked into his eyes. “You silly boy,” she said. “Nothing you love is lost. Not really. Things, people—they always go away, sooner or later. You can’t hold them, any more than you can hold moonlight. But if they’ve touched you, if they’re inside you, then they’re still yours. The only things you ever really have are the ones you hold inside your heart.”

“I loved teaching. I used to teach fourth grade.”

“When I go into schools to speak, I am not giving a speech - it's really a one-man show. I call it 'didactic standup.'”