Jean M. Auel Quotes (30 Quotes)


    But when did you see her, talk to me? When did you see her go into the cave? Why did you threaten to strike a spirit? You still don't understand, do you? You acknowledged her, Broud, she has beaten you. You did everything you could to her, you even cursed her. She's dead, and still she won. She was a woman, and she had more courage than you, Broud, more determination, more self-control. She was more man than you are. Ayla should have been the son of my mate.


    Ayla, I looked for you all my life and didn't know I was looking. You are everything I ever wanted, everything I ever dreamed of in a woman, and more. You are a fascinating enigma, a paradox. You are totally honest, open; you hide nothing: yet you are the most mysterious woman I've ever met.

    I don't know, Jondalar. Maybe you haven't found the right woman. Maybe the Mother has someone special for you. She doesn't make many like you. You are really more than most women could bear. If all your love were concentrated on one, it could overwhelm her, if she wasn't one to whom the Mother gave equal gifts.

    If you want to fall in love, you can't hold everything in. You have to open up, take that risk. You'll be hurt sometimes, but if you don't, you'll never be happy. The one you find may not be the kind of woman you expected to fall in love with, but it wont matter, you'll love her for exactly what she is.


    I probably read 100 times more than I write, but that way when I move my characters through it, I know.

    I could write historical fiction, or science fiction, or a mystery but since I find it fascinating to research the clues of some little know period and develop a story based on that, I will probably continue to do it.

    My fiction is reviewed by the mainstream press, by science fiction periodicals, romance magazines, small press publications and various other journals, including some usually devoted to archaeological and other science material.

    From the beginning, the series has been story driven - I began with a story idea - but research feeds it.

    Science Fiction is not just about the future of space ships travelling to other planets, it is fiction based on science and I am using science as my basis for my fiction, but it's the science of prehistory - palaeontology and archaeology - rather than astronomy or physics.

    Each book has been different and has been challenging in its own way to write.

    I have been a reader of Science Fiction and Fantasy for a long time, since I was 11 or 12 I think, so I understand it and I'm not at all surprised that readers of the genre might enjoy my books.

    I'm just writing a story that I want to read.

    From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me.

    Aside from sales, the letters from readers have been primarily positive.


    It took some time to gather the research and develop it into the storyline, and to finally finish an origin myth poem that I had been working on for twenty years.

    I think of my books as mainstream and that's were most people who read them look for them in book stores.

    I can't tell you any more than any other writer can tell you why they write, and I don't know what my influences are.

    I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.

    Of the two, I would think of my work as closer to Science Fiction than Fantasy.

    And that's how I start myself. I usually go back a couple of pages, maybe to the beginning of the chapter, and I start reading. And as I'm reading, I'm tweaking - putting in a different word, changing the syntax, putting that clause over there, you know that sort of thing.

    The idea led me into the research, which continues to give me more ideas for the story.

    I had an idea for a story about a young woman who was living with people who were different, not just superficially different - such as hair colour, or eye colour, or skin colour - but different in some significant way.


    I can move my characters through it easily, because I understand the background; I've really studied it.

    I don't write for publishers, certainly not for critics, and not for readers, But I am delighted that so many people have found my books enjoyable and want to continue to read them.

    Though my books are written from a historical perspective, I have goon so far back that I am in the realm of prehistorical speculation rather than simple historical fact to weave my stories around.

    I have heard Science Fiction and Fantasy referred to as the fiction of ideas, and I like that definition, but it's the mainstream public that chooses my books for the most part.

    No, my publisher has always done the marketing.


    More Jean M. Auel Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Woman - Love - Books - Idea - Science - Time - Sales - Education - Physics - Criticism - Babies - Mothers - Space - Future - Reading - Danger & Risk - Mystery - Writing - Man - View All Jean M. Auel Quotations

    More Jean M. Auel Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - The Clan of the Cave Bear
    - The Valley of Horses

    Related Authors


    Pablo Neruda - Robert Louis Stevenson - Milan Kundera - Joseph Addison - Herbert Kaufman - Ella Wheeler Wilcox - Dr. Seuss - Bram Stoker - Ayn Rand - Antiphanes


Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections