Darren Shan
I have music on when I write. I don't like the isolation otherwise and find the silence deadening.
I grew up on all sorts of horror - Hammer Horror and Vincent Price's 'Theatre Of Blood.' I loved the hidden, scary layers, but there wasn't that much around for youngsters in terms of horror books. I can remember reading Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot' and 'Cujo,' but I thought there should be more for teenaged horror fans.
The message of 'Zomb-B' is that you have to listen to your own heart and head and question everything. Question stereotypes and the way the world seems or is being presented. Some of the people we should be most concerned about, dangerous right-wing bigots, sound convincing and reasonable.
I was lucky because my mum was a teacher and showed me how to read and write. But most importantly, she encouraged me to use my imagination.
I always loved horror, but I read all sorts of books. My favourite as a child was 'The Secret Garden' which has a big influence on Lord Loss, believe it or not!
All reading should be pleasurable! I don't like people who keep reeling out the 'books are so important' line. First and foremost, reading is about entertainment, the same as movies, video games and music.
I think sometimes parents and teachers can push children away from reading by telling them it's something they must do, the same way they must eat their greens and must pass their exams in school. Poppycock! Read or don't read - that's your call.
I wanted to write about racism and xenophobia in 21st Century England and Ireland, but I wanted to do it in an exciting way so that I could reach more readers. Zombies seemed like a good way to do that.
Reading has always been the great love of my life.
Every generation likes to think that children don't read as much as they used to when they were young! You listen to some adults saying they were going around reading 'Ulysses' when they were seven or eight! I think children are voracious readers if you give them the right books and if you make those books accessible to them.
Anyone who has an imagination can write a book - it's cheap to do - but movies are big money.
I'll never forget a meeting with one publisher where they said, 'We don't publish books for teenage boys; teenage boys don't read.'
My books always focus on the response of the characters to extreme events. As dark as they get, they are ultimately positive, uplifting books about children who take control of their lives and overcome great adversaries. I think that is why they have been so popular.
I think you can spread yourself across any number of genres when you're a writer as long as you have a deep, abiding love for each of them.
The only way to learn and hone your craft is by working hard and writing regularly.
Many people think that it is important to have a title before you begin writing the book, but I think you should never sit around waiting for the right title to strike before you start writing. Crack on with the story, put in the hard work, and the title will come eventually.
One of the things I wanted to do with my own books was bridge the gap between 'Goosebumps' and adult horror.
You do not have to be alone. The world never inflicts loneliness upon us. That is something we choose or reject by ourselves.Collection: Loneliness
Destiny's what you make of it. You have to face whatever life throws at you.Collection: Destiny
But in life we don't usually get to choose the time of our defining moments. We just have to stand and face them when they come, no matter what sort of a state we're in.Collection: Matter
If mankind's destined to bite the bullet, let's bite it and be damned.Collection: Bullets
When it comes to impending, unavoidable extinction, ignorance is bliss.Collection: Ignorance
It is good to be taught humility when we are young. If we do not exeperience pain as children, we will cause pain as adults.Collection: Children
Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins.Collection: Truth
But stories don't end. They continue as long as you're alive. You just have to get on with things. Turn the page, start a new chapter, find out what's in store for you next, and keep your fingers crossed that it's not too awful. Even if you know in your heart and soul that it most probably will be.Collection: Heart
I'm starting to understand that fear is like cancer - you can beat it back, but if it returns, it can be worse than ever.Collection: Cancer
But you're like me,” he says. “An outsider. Different. A freak. We're both weird, which is why we get along.Collection: Outsiders
He says every story has at least some truth in it, even if most are made up.Collection: Stories
Better not to start down a wrong path at all than head down it in the hope of making a detour when something better came along.Collection: Detours
You can't hang around waiting for somebody else to pull your strings. Destiny's what you make of it. You have to face whatever life throws at you. And if it throws more than you'd like, more than you think you can handle? Well then you just have to find the heroism within yourself and play out the hand you've been dealt. The universe never sets a challenge that can't be met. You just need to believe in yourself in order to find the strength to face it.Collection: Believe
It is too easy to say 'what if' and paint a picture of a perfect world.Collection: Ifs And
No, thats not how it happened... Mr crepsley dropped. He was impaled on the stakes. He died. And it was awful... His cries as he writhed there, bleeding and dying, burning and screaming, will stay with me till I die. Maybe I'll even carry them with me after I go.Collection: Dying
But the universe isn't fair. Things don't work out neatly, pain, hardship and challenges divided equally among those best equipped to deal with them. Sometimes individuals have to be Atlases and carry the weight of the world alone. It shouldn't happen that way, but it does.Collection: Pain
You didn't want to die. Most mortals don't, even if they find themselves in as desolate and soul-destroying a spot as you. Almost all of those who take their own lives wish at the last moment that they hadn't. They see at the end how much they've given up, how precious life is, even when it's treated them like dirt and crushed their dreams. Many think they've passed beyond hope, but they never really have, not until they pass beyond life itself. Alas, that knowledge comes too late for most would-be-suicides and they die with regret. Very few are offered the chance that you have been handed.Collection: Suicide
I know that no matter how lonely I get, I'll never be truly alone again. Our loved ones don't leave us. They just move out of sight for a while, and wait...in the shades.Collection: Lonely
Even a minute of dying is better than an eternity of nothingness.Collection: Dying
A world without pain, loss, betrayal, hate, death, loneliness? Impossible!Collection: Pain
Destiny is a tower of cards - nudge one just an inch and everything stacked on top comes crashing down. P116Collection: Destiny
I don't like it, but my hands are tied. I just want you to know this: if I ever get the chance to betray you, I will. If the opportunity arises to pay you back, I'll take it. You'll never be able to trust me.Collection: Opportunity
The hands of Fate keep time on a heart-shaped watch." - Harkat Mulds(The Trials of Death)Collection: Heart
We all make basic assumptions about things in life, but sometimes those assumptions are WRONG. We must never trust in what we assume, only in what we KNOW.Collection: Things In Life
Even in death may you triumphantCollection: May
Wars raged everywhere as men found new, inventive ways to kill even more of their race. It was like a contest, the many tribes of mankind competing to see who could commit the worst atrocities.Collection: War
One of the things is that in times of severe disorder, you can't worry about the dead, only the living.Collection: Worry
I'd like to do something to help the worst afflicted, but I can't. It's not possible to save everybody. Even heroes have their all-too-human limits.Collection: Hero
The world won't end with a bang or a whimper. It'll end with the death screams of a thousand demons and a defiant, carefree, savage, wolfen howl.Collection: Bangs
So easy to take it for granted, but this is something no normal human was made to see. The world of magic has blessed me with wonders and it's only right to stop every now and then to appreciate it.Collection: Blessed
I might have to drink the blood of animals to stay alive, but I would never feast on one of my own kind, no matter what Mr.Crepsley said, or hows much my belly growled.Collection: Animal
Better to die for my people in my own land than rule in another and suffer a lifetime of cowardly guilt.Collection: Land
Maybe we should wait....wait for him to kill another five or six, huh?Collection: Waiting