Writing Quotes

I like to think of myself as a fiction writer who liked art enough to write about it for a while, and then went on to his fiction.

I work with pen and paper. That's my favorite way to write. I love the way the ink sinks into the wood, soaks into the wood pulp. There's something about that process that's so organic.

My day job is writing for television. So I've been on enough sets, and I know how things work.

For a long time I managed to think two things simultaneously, that I am actually a good playwright, and that the next time I write a play I will be revealed as someone who is no good at all.

I write for film or, in this case, television when I haven't got a play cooking.

I enjoy writing dialogue; it comes naturally to me.

I don't write at the library, because I smoke when I work or would like the possibility of a smoke. Also, I need to be at my own desk.

I began writing for theater, and maybe because of that I've always thought of myself as a theater writer who does work in film sometimes.

Real programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who can't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN.

What's really fun is to write under different names.

You know, there is something I'm looking for when I'm writing. But I couldn't tell you what that is.

I always thought I was commercial. I always thought I was writing hit singles. These days, whatever's on the radio is considered commercial. People like what's on the radio, whatever it is.

You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty. I don't want to live any other way.

You just write and you don't try to make sense of it. You just put it down the way you got it.

I'm trying to learn how to write faster.

Right now I feel so inspired, it's hard to believe. I've written about 20 songs in the last two days. I'd gone about four months without writing a thing.

For me, practice isn't doing scales but doing things like writing, jamming with other people, or playing gigs.

When I got home from The Ozzfest in September 2000 with Methods... I just locked myself in my house and I started writing.

You know what, I just write what I feel.

I just write... if it's really good, it's going on the record. If it's average, it's going in the trash.

I don't write on tour. There is so much to do day in and day out when you are on the road.

I write on scraps of paper. I do it every other day. I write about people's lives or how people look or my experiences. I'm very detailed - it's like a script.

I hate to force anything. A lot of people say that comedy is twenty percent truth, and eighty percent fallacy. I believe that you have to have lived through something to write about it.

The habit of getting up early, which I had formed when the children were young, now became my choice. I am not very bright or very witty or very inventive after the sun goes down.

I feel like today we always glorify the young, just-plucked-from-college writer. But it's much harder to start writing later, in middle age, struggling on a book around a full-time job and family.

The books are recordings; that's what they have to be, recordings of the writing. They have to be happening to me.

In the time it takes American literary titan William H. Gass to write a novel, other artists have been born, completed their life's work and died. That may be an exaggeration, but only a slight one.

Discipline is what makes a writer. If writing was like lifting weights, then I'd look like Mr. Universe. Write every day. Give the Muse a chance to get to know you.

I should be writing a poem every morning but I'm not.

You have to know human behaviour … And the quality of your writing is absolutely capped at your understanding of human behaviour. You’ll never write above what you know about people.

No one can help you write. No one can teach you how to write.

I don't remember writing anything until I wrote my college application.

I think what I've recognized over the years is that I'm very, very bingey, extremely bingey when it comes to writing.

I spend a lot of time in a sort of free state when I'm writing in the beginning and sketching.

I prefer writing originals.

You write for two people, yourself and your audience, who are usually better educated and at least as smart.

How can you stop writing?

I am 82 years old. I imagine that I will keep on writing as long as anyone wants to keep reading.

I've lost count of the interviews I've done about my illness and its relationship to my ideas and writing.

I want to write, produce, act, and get into fashion design.

I would be a terrible director, I could never write anything. One of my great strengths is that I know all of my weaknesses.

What I've been saying to people is that I write it.

I don’t want to be an editor! I don’t want to direct; I’d be a horrible director. I don’t want to write - I have a “story by” credit on one film I did. And I don’t want to edit at all.

Acting is something I've always wanted to get into - you memorize lines when you write your rhymes.

I was fascinated to think about a place where men could be the mothers and I thought of my own song-writing and I decided to have a relationship with their daughters.

It's fun to write your set list 20 minutes before and keep the crew very much on their toes.

With two kids it's hard to find down time to write so I often write during their nap time.

I'm not sure I would have ever started to draw, let alone write, if my childhood hadn't been so happy. It was a mixture of comfort and adventure. An excellent mixture!

It's important to tell the artist's story. It's their song! And it's always more fun to write together with the artist!

I have so many other interests: Writing, acting, directing, real life, I need little pieces of it all to satisfy me. The thirst is deep and I am complicated.