About Writing Quotes

A lot of people go off and have fun adventures, or hard adventures, and their impulse is to write about them right away. What really makes a difference is having some perspective on what happened.

Writing is part intuition and part trial and error, but mostly it's very hard work.

The real middle class India that has always been looking for a voice that is its very own. I write about it because I belong to it.

For me, it's important that I experience and feel what the characters are feeling. So I put myself in those moments, in their thoughts, and let it happen naturally. I write what I feel.

Read everything you can on writing. Join online forums and critique groups, go to conferences, get feedback, and learn, learn, learn!

I write from real life. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and a collector of stories. I record bits of overheard dialogue.

Americans think African writers will write about the exotic, about wildlife, poverty, maybe AIDS. They come to Africa and African books with certain expectations.

The best way to write a novel is to do it behind your own back.

I like the idea of trying to write a book in every genre.

If I write novels in a country in which most citizens are illiterate, who then is my community?

I think dialects should be left alone. People should write in whatever dialect they feel they want to write. In the fullness of time, these dialects will sort themselves out.

I'm very primitive; I write with a pen.

What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing.

It is not quite true to say that I am not an advocate of writing in African languages. What I think is, one has to think about what is practicable.

Elvis Costello's song writing is so peerless and individualistic. It's storytelling and it's deeply intelligent and clever.

I believe people instinctively know that about writing, yet people get confused about that when it comes to acting.

When people ask me which I would rather give up, writing or medicine, it's like being asked which eye I'd prefer to have poked out with a spoon: neither, and please use a fork.

If I can't write it would be as if I died.

I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

I write in the novel's afterword that our recent wars "finish not with victory or defeat but with a calendar draw-down date and a presumption that we shall never be reconciled with the enemy".

I can act... I do a little writing as well. And I'm good at typing. I'm a creative typist, actually.

Everyone that I meet always wants me to direct, but whenever I think of directing, I think of aligning shots. I'd definitely have to write and direct something. But I don't know if I could.

I'm under strict instructions to write a happy ending. Rule number ninety-seven: You're not allowed to make a dragon cry." "Right," Said Sophie, starting the engine. "Tears might quench their fire.

For me, you have to not have a formula. You have to not even sit down and say, 'I want to write right now.' It has to just kind of come out. It's not something you can plan.

Stand-up isn't something I just sit down and start writing - it's ideas you come up with in the shower, while you're driving, waiting in line.

I do lots of crowd work in my set, because I enjoy writing material through riffing and conversation.

I think Gram did his best work in co-writes. Sometimes when you're working with one other person, it's such a magical thing. You're editing each other and you're trying to create that one spark.

Everything I say about [writing] battles applies equally well in the boudoir.

My advice is: if you've got to be miserable to write great music, then drive a truck.

I write my own songs, and I only see their flaws.

I'm not a very spiritual guy when it comes to music. I remember hearing Carlos Santana say that angels helped him write his songs. And I thought, 'Really, angels?

To be honest, after all the crap that happened with 'Summer Heights High,' I was like, 'I'm not going to write anything controversial or edgy ever again; I just can't handle the blame.'

I feel really qualified to write about Australia.

It takes me ages to write stuff.

When I was in school, I was always writing scripts and dressing up as characters. I'd constantly be that guy who'd get up on stage. I used to write imaginary TV shows, like soap operas, for fun.

It's always flattering when somebody you really respect and like wants you to be involved in their project - let alone writes a part with your voice in mind.

Write 100 things that you love about your partner. It's another way of keeping yourself in check. It's hard to do.

The thing about having an audience right there laughing is that critics can write what they want, but the proof is right there in front of you.

You can write a great country record and still be angry. Who's angrier than Toby Keith? He's angrier than the average 10 rappers.

You have to stick to what you love, as writing is such a lonely and depressing existence... stick to what you love and someone will hear your voice.

You can't really write until the characters kind of show up one day and tell you what they're going to say. You start to hear the rhythm of the way the people talk, and then it becomes easier.

The real power of comics is writing as you draw.

Songwriting is like working on a jigsaw puzzle, and it doesn't make any sense until you find that last piece. It has to make sense or it doesn't work.

I don't know if I could write songs if it wasn't for the female race, to be honest with you.

I always wanted to be an independent maverick, writing plays and putting them on myself.

If it is a distinction to have written a good book, it is also a disgrace to have written a bad one.

I have little weird things that aren't really specific but are just kind of odd. I write my 5's backwards, and I don't know if anyone would even care, at all.

I really do enjoy getting out to meet my readers. Writing is such a solitary business, it's gratifying to thank folks in person and really connect as human beings and not just words on a screen.

I never want to feel constrained by writing a novel for a specific audience.

I have a lot of empathy for women who fit their writing into the crevices of their too-busy lives, as I once did.