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

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

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!

I feel happy to terrify kids.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.

I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

The proper study of mankind is books.

I have written about 10 books, all just practical encouragement for moms.

Whites were the winners, blacks were the losers, we wrote the history books, and they didn't feature.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.

You could say, in a vulgar Freudian way, that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child, I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.

Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist.

As I have studied the Bible and the Book of Mormon, I have come to know through the power of the Spirit of God, that these books contain the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

Then I found books that were written much later, as late as 15 years ago. It was very superficial material, but enough to tell me that the genesis of this story was worth exploring.

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

Well, it was actually - I brought the idea of doing a documentary to HBO back in 2000, when there were some press reports sort of were bandied about that there were going to TV movies based on some of the books that were out.

In my subconscious, my books were part of a single emotional journey.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

I never buy magazines, I never even buy books.