Writing Quotes

I would never tell myself, you have to write 20 pages today or something. But I do try to show up. Read what I wrote, fix things.

I won't write my autobiography because I never had an affair with Frank Sinatra, and if I had had, I wouldn't tell anyone.

Writing humor is not something every single person can do.

Sometimes I write about things that never happened to me that wind up happening to me. When you put things out in the universe, sometimes they wind up coming true.

It's more difficult to write a song about having your heart ripped out of your chest while you're in love. Because it lacks honesty. And the honesty comes through in the music, it really does.

I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it.

Writing is my refuge. It's where I go. It's where I find that integrity I have.

All the fantasy writers I know have a way of dwelling on their own fears and phobias. A writer spends his life being his own psychiatrist.

Don't ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out.

I write right off the typer. I call it my "machinegun." I hit it hard, usually late at night while drinking wine and listening to classical music on the radio and smoking mangalore ganesh beedies.

Genius, in one respect, is like gold; numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.

He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men's heads.

Enough of self, that darling luscious theme, O'er which philosophers in raptures dream; Of which with seeming disregard they write Then prizing most when most they seem to slight.

Paintings must be understood through the eyes, and that's not the word either. No writing, no talking, no singing, no dancing will explain them. They are the final, the nth whoopee of sight.

Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.

I would write my editorials using a manual typewriter in pitch-black darkness... I would produce the whole thing without having seen the text.

When a critic knows what she or he is looking at and writes revealingly about it, it's sublime.

Every promise of Scripture is a writing of God, which may be pleaded before Him with this reasonable request, 'Do as Thou hast said.' The Heavenly Father will not break His Word to His own child.

Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep the reader interested ...)

If an idea is compelling enough it'll stick in my head until I am forced to write it. If it's forgettable, who cares?

I think dreams are metaphors. Everything you do in writing is metaphorical. So it seems like the same arena to me.

Providing a writer isn't put off by conventions - and some are - attending them can be a nice break from the necessary isolation of writing.

All I ever wanted to do was write songs and get on a bus and go play them for people.

With fiction, it could be about anything. It just has to be good writing, like Maria Semple's "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," which I read recently. I want to forget I have a book in my hand.

I think human beings exist in a social world. I write realistic fiction, and so it isn't that surprising that the social realities of their existence would be part of the story.

Every book I write, the first thing I have to do is get into the voice, and the voice varies from book to book - that's part of what's interesting to me.

In every book I write, I try to name-check the most prominent influences, or the most prominent conscious influences.

David Mamet was great to work with. He was everything that I thought he would be as a director. He's incredibly articulate, an easy collaborator. Extraordinarily knowledgeable about film and writing.

Don't write what you know. Write what you love. That's what will keep you writing.

Glen Campbell told me, 'Stay out of the way of a good song.' I think it's true. If a song's good, don't overdo it.

My thesis statement would be—Bach didn't write Baroque music. He wrote great music.

The thing about Donald [Trump] is the jokes write themselves. I don't even think of it to be trolling. What he says is the joke.

For this purpose I determined to keep an account of the voyage, and to write down punctually every thing we performed or saw from day to day, as will hereafter appear.

I began writing in the 4th grade. As a matter of fact, I produced a play for the entire school. It was about Leif Ericson and the discovery of America.

Forget it. Never explain; never apologize. You can either write posthumously or you can't.

I'm very happy by myself - I'm lucky in that way - if I've got enough to read and something to write about and a bit of alcohol for me to add an edge, not to dull it.

One should never write down or up to people, but out of yourself.

The beginning of a plot is the prompting of desire.

This is what I wanted to do from the very beginning: write songs and make records and tour them with a good live band.

Besides the soothing effect it has, I think my favorite part of writing is being able to use my imagination and creativity to make new ideas and people and situations come to life.

Actually I'm writing as best I can, in order to keep the momentum and the career there, but I want to live.

Book writing is a little different because, in my case, my editor is a year younger than me and basically has the same sensibility as me.

If anything I try to write something that would be more difficult to film. I tend to see film as competition and would like instead to do what books do best.

It's often wrong to write for specific actors because one ends up using what is least interesting about them, their mannerisms and habits. I prefer not to write for specific people.

I'm writing a review of three books on feminism and science, and it's about social constructionism. So I would say I'm a social constructionist, whatever that means

Whenever I'm on tour and I'm in my hotel room and I'm writing and playing my guitar, I go in the bathroom and I record whatever I'm writing in there. It's just what I love to do.

I write every day when I'm at home - trying to catch up with correspondence.

The attributes you need to be a travel writer are somewhat contradictory. For travel you need to be tough and resilient and to write you must be sensitive and sympathetic.

There is no doubt that it is more difficult to read and more difficult to write but I still manage.

I am writing a sequel to The Touch because I want to further explore the Chinese question that I have raised. There will be more about that in a sequel.