Suzanne Collins Quotes & Sayings

“I don't write about adolescence. I write about war. For adolescents.”

“Both the 'Gregor' series and 'The Hunger Games' are what I call lightning-bolt ideas. There was a moment where the idea came to me. With 'The Hunger Games,' the lightning bolt sort of hit at a moment when I was channel surfing between reality TV and the coverage of the Iraq war.”

“Telling a story in a futuristic world gives you this freedom to explore things that bother you in contemporary times.”

“I think we put our children at an enormous disadvantage by not educating them in war, by not letting them understand about it at an early age.”

“One of the most memorable things I hear is when someone tells me that my books got a reluctant reader to read.”

“When I was young, I was trained in stage fighting and rapier and dagger for several years.”

“I think people respond to dystopian stories because they're ways of acting out anxieties that we have and fears that we have about the future. So much media's coming at you over the Internet, your brain gets overloaded. You don't know what to do with it. And one thing you can do with it is read a story.”

“Whenever I write a story, I hope it appeals to both boys and girls.”

“All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story... You've got good characters... People think there's some dramatic difference between writing 'Little Bear' and the 'Hunger Games,' and as a writer, for me, there isn't.”

“If your parent is deployed and you are that young, you spend the whole time wondering where they are and waiting for them to come home. As time passes and the absence is longer and longer, you become more and more concerned - but you don't really have the words to express your concern. There's only this continued absence.”