Louis Sachar

“I write in the mornings, two or three hours every day, and then at least four times a week I play in a duplicate game at a bridge club. I try to go to tournaments three, four, or five times a year.”

“Not counting 'Small Steps,' I think 'Holes' is my best book, in terms of plot, and setting, and the way the story revealed itself. It hasn't changed my life, other than that I have more money than I did before I wrote it. I'm still too close to 'Small Steps' to compare it to 'Holes.'”

“I never think of an entire book at once. I always just start with a very small idea. In 'Holes,' I just began with the setting; a juvenile correctional facility located in the Texas desert. Then I slowly make up the story, and rewrite it several times, and each time I rewrite it, I get new ideas, and change the old ideas around.”

“I actually started an adult book, worked on it for about two years, and then decided it just wasn't coming together for me, and thought I'll go back to children's books, and almost immediately I started 'Holes,' and it just seemed to take off on me.”

“Part of me becomes the characters I'm writing about. I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result.”

“I jog in the morning and then write for about two hours. There are times when I'm really excited and can't wait to get back to it. But there are days when I don't know what's coming next, and I really have to force it.”

“Now you be careful in the real world" said Armpit " Not everyone is as nice as us.”

“I want kids to think that reading can be just as much fun and more so than TV or video games or whatever else they do. I think any other kind of message or morals that I might teach is secondary to first just enjoying a book.”

“I don't listen to music when I write. I need silence.”

“I really began to love to read while in high school, and my favorite authors were my heroes: J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut.”

“I think of a book and a play, or a book and a movie, as two separate things - I don't think of it as my novel having a new life.”

“He understood it when other kids were mean to him. It didn't bother him. He simply hated them. As long as he hated them, it didn't matter what they thought of him.”