Words matter. These are the best Marie Lu Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I’m a big fan of the trope of ‘the poor boy meets the wealthy girl.’ I like the idea of this boy from the other side of the tracks who doesn’t have a lot, but he’ll give that little bit that he has to you.
It feels like it’s the end of the world if you don’t do well on your SATs.
When I was young, I couldn’t process emotions well.
Writing is an extremely rewarding and humbling process, and I’ve learned to go with it, that even if it feels absolutely impossible, I will find a way to tell the next story.
I’m not much of an outliner in general. I tend to wing my way through all my drafts, which means writing a series is a very chaotic and panic-inducing experience.
My first three manuscripts were epic fantasy – like high fantasy – and then the fourth one was a historical fantasy about Mozart as a child. I still have a soft spot for that one!
I remember playing ‘Mortal Kombat’ when I was a kid and the other ‘Tekken’-style games.
I had a wonderful fan who once sent me an alpaca hat all the way from Peru, where he’d gone to volunteer in a remote village because he was inspired by ‘Legend’ to do good. That’s probably one of the sweetest fan moments I’ve experienced.
What can I say: I’m a writer – I enjoy forcing pain and suffering on my characters!
A really fun fan moment was when a fan gave me a copy of ‘Legend’ that he had turned into a functional clock!
I had an erroneous idea that writing a duology would be simpler than writing a trilogy because I would get to cut out the middle book. It turns out it was actually harder because ‘Wildcard’ became this combination of having to write a book two and three at the same time.
I think I was always meant to write dark stories.
I’ve always had this interest in sibling relationships because I don’t have any siblings. I’m completely a product of the one-child policy in China, so I always kind of wished that I had an older brother or a younger brother or sister just to have that bond, so I find myself constantly writing about that relationship.
I remember my favorite books when I was a kid: ‘The Redwall Adventure’ series, ‘Ender’s Game,’ things like that.
I’m one of those people that, if I’m sad or depressed, I don’t talk to people about it. I bottle it in.
A lot of the moments and experiences in ‘Warcross’ were inspired by specific moments that I remember as an intern working at Disney or having fun with my coworkers. A lot of it is very anecdotal.
Growing up, I didn’t know any writers and felt somewhat isolated.
We determine whether a book is for boys or girls long before the reader gets a chance to decide: we package them with soldiers and ballet slippers on their covers, war machines and glittering gowns.
Movies require so many moving pieces to align that it really is a miracle that anything is made!
‘The Rose Society’ was definitely the hardest book I’ve ever written, because it’s so difficult to stay in that dark space.
I used to work in the video game industry before I became a full-time writer.
When I first came over to the States, I started writing, I think, as a way to help myself learn English. I would start stapling together little booklets for myself.
I went into writing ‘The Young Elites’ with a great deal of fear – I’d been told repeatedly that a villain’s story would be far too dark for young readers to want and that no one would like my villainess, Adelina. I braced myself for epic failure.
When I was young, I drew as often as I wrote.
I started writing seriously when I was a teenager, around 14 years old.
