Alan Dean Foster Quotes

• Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.

  Alan Dean Foster

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Freedom
• 

  The thing writers do best is find ways to avoid writing.

  Alan Dean Foster

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Avoid, Writers, Writing

• Living gives you a better understanding of life. I would hope that my characters have become deeper and more rounded personalities. Wider travels have given me considerably greater insight into how cultural differences affect not only people, but politics and art.

  Alan Dean Foster

  Topics in Art, Humanity, Life, Politics

  Tags in Writers And Writing, Understanding

• Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I’d really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it’s the wrong century.

  Alan Dean Foster

• There’s certainly more new SF available than when I started writing. That means there’s also more bad SF available. Whether there is also more good is a matter for future historians of the field.

  Alan Dean Foster

• The overwhelming triumph of the international multimedia conglomerate has resulted in less diversity within the field and has made it much harder for newer writers not only to break in, but to make any kind of a living while doing so.

  Alan Dean Foster

• Keep writing. Try to do a little bit every day, even if the result looks like crap. Getting from page four to page five is more important than spending three weeks getting page four perfect.

  Alan Dean Foster

• In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.

  Alan Dean Foster

• I’ve been writing full-time since 1978.

  Alan Dean Foster

• I write early in the morning, usually after reading portions of at least half a dozen newspapers on the web.

  Alan Dean Foster

• I usually do one con a year as a GoH and try to make the World Fantasy Convention for business purposes. Last year I went to a worldcon for the first time in two decades. I may go again this year.

  Alan Dean Foster

• I try to challenge myself as much as possible, as often as possible.

  Alan Dean Foster

• I see the Jedi mission as giving up a normal life in exchange for protecting the innocent. It’s a life of sacrifice. There are rewards, but also a certain degree of sterility.

  Alan Dean Foster

• I hear entire symphonies, oratorios, in my head, but I can’t write a note.

  Alan Dean Foster

• I have a bad tendency to get rapidly bored with my own material, so rewriting is hard for me. I mean, I already know the story and would rather read something new.

  Alan Dean Foster

• I enjoy listening to classical music and heavy metal. I play basketball and try to go diving at least once a year. I don’t really have hobbies in the traditional sense… I engage in too many activities already through the actions of my characters.

  Alan Dean Foster

• How much research I have to do depends on the nature of the story. For fantasy, none at all.

  Alan Dean Foster

• Growing up, I never gave a thought to being a writer. All I ever wanted to be was a traveler and explorer. Science-fiction allowed me to go places that were otherwise inaccessible, which is why I started reading it. I was going to be a lawyer, but I got saved.

  Alan Dean Foster

• Getting inside the mind of a terrorist wasn’t difficult at all. Even as children, human beings fabricate elaborate revenge fantasies. We’re not a particular species. Check out popular video games.

  Alan Dean Foster

• Don’t try to write to the trend of the moment.

  Alan Dean Foster

Alan Dean Foster (23)

Birth:	18th November, 1946
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Author, Novelist

About

Alan Dean Foster is an American author of fantasy and science fiction, with many series to his credit as well as a large number of single novels. He is especially prolific in his novelizations of film scripts. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science and a MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles and currently resides in Prescott, Arizona, with his wife.

Related Authors

• Gary Hopkins
• Sarah Dunn
• Walker Percy
• Ashley Olsen
• Andrew Sullivan
• Scott Westerfeld
• Mary Kay Blakely
• Ray Rhamey
• Tom Evans
• Herbert Croly

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 17th April

Births

• 1945 - Nadia McCaffrey
• 1964 - Maynard James Keenan
• 1741 - Samuel Chase
• 1880 - Leonard Woolley
• 1974 - Victoria Beckham

Deaths

• 2008 - Aime Fernand David Cesaire
• 1998 - Linda McCartney
• 2007 - Kitty Carlisle
• 1835 - William Henry Ireland
• 1988 - Louise Nevelson