R. L. Stine

After spending 22 years in Ohio, I love everything about New York.

Making my class laugh and getting in trouble. I was the class clown.

It's my job, too, to keep up with pop culture and what the kids are into 'cause you don't want to sound like an old man trying to write for kids. I spend a lot of my time spying on them.

When I write for kids, I have to make sure they know what can't happen. They have to know it's a fantasy. But when I write for adults, they have to think it's real. Every detail has to be real or they won't buy it.

I feel that good fantasy will always be in demand. I think children especially need literature that helps them escape from the real world, which is very scary to them right now.

I've never turned into a bee - I've never been chased by a mummy or met a ghost. But many of the ideas in my books are suggested by real life.

I used to get a haircut every Saturday so I would never miss any of the comic books. I had practically no hair when I was a kid!

Most fears are basic: fear of the dark, fear of going down in the basement, fear of weird sounds, fear that somebody is waiting for you in your closet. Those kinds of things stay with you no matter what age.

I feel happy to terrify kids.

When I write, I try to think back to what I was afraid of or what was scary to me, and try to put those feelings into books.

Believe it or not, my introduction to scary literature was 'Pinocchio.' My mother read it to me every day before naptime when I was three or four. The original 'Pinocchio' is terrifying.

I really wanted to be a cartoonist, and I was in 4th or 5th grade and I would bring my drawings in, and I'd look around, and everyone could draw better than me. Everyone. My drawings were just awful. So that's why I had to write.

Read. Read. Read. Just don't read one type of book. Read different books by various authors so that you develop different styles.

You have no control over natural disaster. Thats whats scary about it. Youre helpless. That feeling of helplessness is really scary.

If you want to be a writer, don't worry so much about writing. Read as much as you can. Read as many different writers as you can. Soak up the styles.

I got the chance to do things that I dreamed of when I was a kid: I got to travel around the world; I had my own 'Goosebumps' attraction at Disney World; I've been on TV and had three TV series.

A real New Yorker likes the sound of a garbage truck in the morning.

Well, when I was 13, for my bar mitzvah I received my first typewriter. And that was special.

I've never dreamed of a story idea. I have such boring dreams.

It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her, but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.

Everything that has happened to me has been amazing and surprising.

I'm obsessed with radio. It's a good start to Sunday morning.

If you do enough planning before you start to write, there's no way you can have writer's block. I do a complete chapter by chapter outline.

I guess I'm way too kind and generous, and a saint - if you can believe that!

I haven't written a young-adult book in years. I'm also doing six 'Goosebumps' books a year now.

I started writing when I was 9 years old. I was like this weird kid who would just stay in my room, typing little funny magazines and drawing comic strips.

When I was a kid, there were these great comic books called 'Tales From The Crypt' and 'The Vault of Horror.' They were gruesome. I discovered them in the barbershop and thought they were fabulous.

I have a cheat-sheet for each one of my characters about their personality, the way they look, etc. So there is no possible way that I could have writer's block.