R.L. Stine citations

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

“Many adults feel that every children's book has to teach them something…. My theory is a children's book… can be just for fun.”

“I've had a very sheltered life. What can happen to you if you stay home writing all day?”

“The next day, Greg is so large that he cannot even ride the car to school because he can't fit in the car. His parents believe this to have been caused by a food allergy and resolve to take him to the doctor later.”

“Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out!”

“Yes, I was a funny guy for a long time. When I started out, I just wanted to write humor. I wrote humor for kids. My very first book was called How to be Funny. It was about how to get big laughs at the dinner table and how to get laughs in school. Parents hated this book. I wrote joke books, like A Hundred and One Monster Jokes, and other joke books for years. I did maybe a hundred of them. I had a great time, and I did this humor magazine called Bananas for ten years. It was sort of Mad Magazine, but it was all in color, and it was great. That was all I ever wanted to do. I couldn't believe it. When that ended, I figured I would just coast for the rest of my career. That was it. I'd already done what I wanted to do. I had no idea what was coming up.”

“I wrote 87 Goosebumps books. That's a lot of books for a human, isn't it? None of us expected what happened with Goosebumps. We started it in 1992, and by 1994, I was turning out a Goosebumps a month, and it was doing okay for a while. And then it just took off like nothing we'd ever seen. It took off all over the world – not through advertising, hype, or promotions – but just kids telling kids. There's some kind of secret kids network out there. Just kids telling kids about it, and this thing grew everywhere. It was in 28 languages. At one point, after a couple years, we were selling 4 million Goosebumps books a month.”