Rick Riordan Quotes

I've been reading Greek mythology since I was a kid. I also taught it when I was a sixth grade teacher, so I knew a lot of mythological monsters already. Sometimes I still use books and Web sites to research, though. Every time I research Greek mythology, I learn something new!

- Rick Riordan

To a degree, the Greek and Roman mythological heroes are just the first superheroes. They appeal to children for much the same reason. These gods and heroes may have powers, but they get angry and they do the wrong thing. They are human too.

- Rick Riordan

Every child's taste is different. Don't worry if they're not reading 'War and Peace' at age 12. First, build a good foundation and a positive attitude about reading by letting them pick the stories they enjoy. Make friends with a bookseller or librarian. They are a wealth of information on finding books that kids enjoy.

- Rick Riordan

'Harry Potter' opened so many doors for young adult literature. It really did convince the publishing industry that writing for children was a viable enterprise. And it also convinced a lot of people that kids will read if we give them books that they care about and love.

- Rick Riordan

I think kids want the same thing from a book that adults want - a fast-paced story, characters worth caring about, humor, surprises, and mystery. A good book always keeps you asking questions, and makes you keep turning pages so you can find out the answers.

- Rick Riordan

Even if these stories are 3,000 years old, there's still so much about the characters, about the dilemmas, about their understanding of the universe that still resonates. The whole idea of order and chaos, which is really central to the ancient Egyptian understanding of the world, is still very much with us.

- Rick Riordan

I get letters from college kids who have read Percy Jackson when they were younger who tell me, 'I just passed my Classics exam.' The books are accurate enough that they can serve as a gateway to Homer and Virgil.

- Rick Riordan

The older I get, the less I obsess about material stuff. In fact, stuff has become the enemy. There always seems to be more of it than I have storage in my house!

- Rick Riordan

I think anytime you're writing to the middle grades, you're writing to young readers who are trapped in a number of ways between two worlds: between childhood and adulthood, between their friends and their parents.

- Rick Riordan

I can't promise that every child with learning differences will become a novelist, but I do think all children can become lifelong readers.

- Rick Riordan

When I was in college, my parents' house burned down, and took a lot of the possessions I'd grown up with. That's probably one thing that made me realize material stuff is not really that important.

- Rick Riordan

I have more ideas than I'll ever be able to write in five lifetimes.

- Rick Riordan

Because I am kind of distracted, I don't tend to sit at my desk 9 to 5. It can be two hours a day, or, when I'm in the final editing stages, it can be 14 hours a day.

- Rick Riordan

I've never been a collector - just a consumer - and these days unless a book is signed to me by another author, I don't normally have any qualms about passing it to a friend or donating it to the library.

- Rick Riordan

You know, how much order is good? And when does order become too restrictive? Is a little bit of chaos okay, or is chaos always an evil force? I mean, these are questions that any kid who's ever been in a school cafeteria can relate to.

- Rick Riordan

I go back and research, say, every reference to the Gorgons, and I find what the classical writers said about them and it's so much richer than you might get in an average Greek mythology text. I feel like an archaeologist - I'm dusting off these things that people have not seen for thousands of years and bringing them into the modern world.

- Rick Riordan

I think children love reading, and they will make time for it if we put the right books into their hands. And I hope I get the chance to keep being one of the people that writes them.

- Rick Riordan

I sometimes look at my bookshelves today and wonder which volumes my sons will treasure in twenty or thirty years. Which should I be saving for them? Which will fade with time?

- Rick Riordan

We tend to think of divorced or complicated families as a modern invention, and that is not at all true. You only have to read the Greek myths to see broken homes, widows, divorce, stepchildren, children trying to get along with new parents.

- Rick Riordan

I think the more you understand myths, the more you understand the roots of our culture and the more things will resonate. Do you have to know them? No, but certainly it is nice to recognise how deeply these things are embedded in our literature, our art.

- Rick Riordan

For me, writing for kids is harder because they're a more discriminating audience. While adults might stay with you, if you lose your pacing or if you have pages of extraneous description, a kid's not going to do that. They will drop the book.

- Rick Riordan

When I was young, my favorite picture book was 'Fletcher and Zenobia,' written by Edward Gorey and illustrated by Victoria Chess. It's long out of print now, but its mix of macabre humor and 1960s psychedelia made it a perfect children's book for the times.

- Rick Riordan

Writing 'Book 1: The Maze of Bones' didn't feel much different than writing one of my other novels, but I thought it was very innovative to offer the website and trading card components as well for those readers who wanted to go more in depth with the Cahill experience.

- Rick Riordan

I loved the idea of making history interesting for kids! When Scholastic approached me about 'The 39 Clues', I immediately started going through the 'greatest hits' from my years as a social studies teacher, and picked the historical characters and eras that most appealed to my students.

- Rick Riordan

As a teacher, I've never seen anything like 'Harry Potter.' That's why I smart when people talk about the 'next' 'Harry Potter.' There is no 'next' 'Harry Potter.'

- Rick Riordan

No one spoke in terms of children's literature, as opposed to adult literature, until around the 1940s. It wasn't categorised much before then. Even Grimm's tales were written for adults. But it is true that ever since 'Harry Potter' there has been a renaissance in fantasy literature. J. K. Rowling opened the door again.

- Rick Riordan

I think kids will read more good books than we can possibly produce.

- Rick Riordan

The Web or card experience is not at all going to replicate the book experience, nor is the book experience going to replicate the Web.

- Rick Riordan

It seems like just yesterday my son was hiding under the table to avoid reading. Now, he's writing books longer than mine!

- Rick Riordan

I like both Greek and Egyptian. More Greek stories have survived, so we know more about them. They've always been my favorite. On the other hand, I like the Egyptian stories because they're not as commonly known and they have an exotic flavour.

- Rick Riordan

All of my characters tend to be montages of different people I've met: little bits and pieces of their personalities put together.

- Rick Riordan

My goal in the classroom was always to make sure they were having so much fun that they didn't realize they were learning.

- Rick Riordan

There are days when I'll write for 15 minutes and have to give up and move around, and I'll write another paragraph and give up again. On other days I get intensely - focused on the process, sit down at 8 A.M. and won't get up until 8 P.M.

- Rick Riordan

Back when I taught middle school and wrote adult mysteries, my students often asked me why I wasn't writing for kids. I never had a good answer for them. It took me a long time to realize they were right.

- Rick Riordan

I can't actually wrap my mind around it easily - I can't really visualize what 2 million books looks like... So I try to keep it real for myself by focusing on individual anecdotes of how my books have helped kids learn to love reading.

- Rick Riordan

I tend to think of a myth and then explore how it would play out if it were happening in the modern-day world. I modify all the myths I use, but I stick very closely to their structure - it is the hidden teacher in me.

- Rick Riordan

I have a great deal of sympathy for reluctant readers because I was one. I would do anything to avoid reading. In my case, it wasn't until I was 13 and discovered the 'Lord of the Rings' that I learned to love reading.

- Rick Riordan

It's hard enough to be a middle-school kid, because you're dealing with so many facets of your identity - you're changing socially, you're changing physically, you're changing emotionally, everything is in flux, and to put race on top of that as well and have to figure out your racial identity is extremely hard.

- Rick Riordan

I saw 'The 39 Clues' as a potential vehicle for doing some education in a fun way - to take some of these amazing stories from history, dust them off and make them alive.

- Rick Riordan

I don't teach anymore, but I can still clearly see fifth period after lunch - that's a real tough time to teach. And I tried to imagine writing a story that would appeal to those kids - even when they're tired, even when they're bouncing off the walls.

- Rick Riordan

I don't think about being famous, really. Being an author, I don't generally get stopped as I walk down the street. It's not like being a movie star.

- Rick Riordan

I stick closely to the structure of the myths. I may have some fun with the mythology by changing the environment to modern-day, but the structure of the myths, the monsters, the relationships of the gods - none of that is made up.

- Rick Riordan

I always love it when I hear back from kids who say they discovered Percy Jackson and now wear their learning difference as a badge of honour.

- Rick Riordan

I do like to wrap things up and leave some things to the readers' imagination.

- Rick Riordan

I come to writing the same way I come to teaching, which is that my goal is always to create life-long readers.

- Rick Riordan

I have to be careful. My readers are very detail-oriented, and if I make a mistake they'll call me on it.

- Rick Riordan

My problem is never ideas. I've got more than I'll ever have time to write. It's all about how many I can get to, and which ones readers want to see the most.

- Rick Riordan

I think that kids have a greater capacity for processing things than we give them credit for.

- Rick Riordan

I've always liked the idea that writing is a form of travel. And I started my writing career as a mystery novelist for adults.

- Rick Riordan

It's not easy. I got lots of rejections when I first started out. If you want to write, you have to believe in yourself and not give up. You have to do your best to practice and get better.

- Rick Riordan

It is true that I once refused to eat haggis in Scotland and this did not sit well with the local population.

- Rick Riordan

The deeper I go into mythology, the more I find. I originally did five 'Percy Jackson' books. I thought that would cover Greek mythology and I couldn't have been more wrong. It's ever-expanding.

- Rick Riordan

I love Norse mythology - Thor and Odin and Loki - amazing characters.

- Rick Riordan

The Met is such a powerful place for me because it's a natural connection between the ancient world and the modern world. And when you're dealing with ancient mythology, trying to put a modern spin on it, you really can't do much better than to call on the Met.

- Rick Riordan

It's always hard to wrap up a series. The longer I spend with the characters, the more they become like friends.

- Rick Riordan

I love teaching. I love working with kids... maybe some day I'll go back to the classroom. I'm not ready to say it'll never happen.

- Rick Riordan

I'm a teacher still, but with a much larger classroom.

- Rick Riordan

I wanted my students to leave my classroom loving reading and wanting to read more, and if they left my classroom thinking that reading is boring, then I haven't done my job.

- Rick Riordan

There are so many fantastic stories and I want to bring Thor and Odin and the other gods into the modern world, just like I did with the Greeks and 'Percy Jackson.' I'll give the books an urban setting and have young people interacting with the Norse gods.

- Rick Riordan

Turkey, Australia, and Japan are three of my top destinations.

- Rick Riordan

If the parents are too busy to read, it's a safe bet the children will feel the same way. Set aside time for family reading each night. It doesn't matter so much what the kids read, as long as you provide them space for reading and a sense that it is a valuable part of your daily routine.

- Rick Riordan

Every child is different. I think it's important that we don't have maybe just one or two books that we're recommending to all children - but rather we cater the books to fit each individual child.

- Rick Riordan

I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the level of success I've had. I was just writing stories for my own sons.

- Rick Riordan

When I write, I'm still imagining a kid reading it on paper. I read e-books when I travel, but in general I still prefer holding an old-fashioned book in my hands. There's a special, tactile experience.

- Rick Riordan

I wrote for 10 years before I even started the 'Percy Jackson' series.

- Rick Riordan

I don't think I would ever inch my way up to Y.A. That audience is very well served. There are a lot of wonderful writers writing for Y.A. I feel like I'm in the right place.

- Rick Riordan

It's wonderful being an author and having so many kids enjoying my books. That's always been my dream job, and I feel very lucky to be able to do it.

- Rick Riordan

You have to work hard to get to the top of your game. I think every writer has doubts! I still do all the time.

- Rick Riordan

I've always found the second book in a series is the hardest to write.

- Rick Riordan

Kids ask me questions. You'd think after doing this for four years, I would have heard every single question anyone could think of to ask, but no, every time, they surprise me, they ask me something I never thought of before.

- Rick Riordan

The images from the book you make in your head are always going to be the best images.

- Rick Riordan

I like to have a simple workplace.

- Rick Riordan