Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't think it's important for everyone necessarily, and I totally respect that because everyone writes differently.
It takes a lot of energy and a lot of neurosis to write a novel. If you were really sensible, you'd do something else.
I have a day job, which means my family isnt dependent on the writing income. So if I have an idea I like, I write it.
I can't remove the autobiographical slant from the things I write. You always bring yourself into what you're writing.
I really do like to write and when I'm not, I think, "Okay, I'll be a good citizen now" but fact is, that's secondary.
Painters get up and paint. Writers get up and write. I like to get up and act. It's not a big deal. It makes me happy.
One of the problems of writing is that anyone who commits themselves to that process has to believe that they're good.
Literature simply becomes richer after you've been fired, rejected, stranded, or had to change a few midnight diapers.
It's an incredible privilege to be able to sit in front of a computer and spend a few hours just thinking and writing.
You write to become immortal, or because the piano happens to be open, or you've looked into a pair of beautiful eyes.
I don't write books for people to be friends with the characters. If you want to find friends, go to a cocktail party.
Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for transparency between one’s words and one’s soul.
There is an art to writing, and it is not always disclosure. The act itself can be beautiful, revelatory, and private.
Writing responds well to some gentle scheduling. A day job not only promotes solvency, it promotes creativity as well.
He who commits a wrong will himself inevitably see the writing on the wall, though the world may not count him guilty.
There's no one on the island telling them they're not good enough, so they just go ahead and sing and paint and write.
The connection that I have with my readers makes me very happy, and gives meaning to the strange profession of writing
I don't really know what inspires me to write the music I do, but usually, the music will set the tone for the lyrics.
If anything, I've probably tended more toward humor in my writing and veered more toward pleasure in my personal life.
The way I write is totally instinctive. I just write what I feel or what I find funny - and hope everyone else agrees.
I have been very lucky: my writing has taken me across the world, and I have seen some extraordinary sites and sights.
Gertrude Stein said, "I write for myself and strangers." I would say I write for myself, strangers and the great dead.
Truly I never thought of myself as writing legal thrillers, and I still don't think I do. I write stories about women.
The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside
Writing about people helps us to understand them, and understanding them helps us to accept them as part of ourselves.
I think the U.K. is too small to write about from within it and still make it seem foreign and exotic and interesting.
I teach a non-fiction writing class at New York University, and one of my great pleasures is deciding on the syllabus.
Oh, you know what bloggers are like, they write and write and write. I don't know why, because they're not being paid.
Publishing is the final step in making a book; if I was afraid to publish one, I wouldn't write it in the first place.
With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart from me.
Music was my friend when I was a teenager, and I would inhabit and take comfort in lyrics. That's how I want to write.
Word meanings are like stretchy pullovers, whose outline contour is visible, but whose detailed shape varies with use.
We're not the kind of band who writes an order abundance of songs and picks from them, we usually write for the album.
If you really want a prize, or if you really want applause, you should try to write as many books as humanly possible.
My paintings are very strange - large and empty, like walls. Just the opposite of my writing, which is rich and juicy.
To write, you have to know how to act and know about directing. To act, you also need to know how to write and direct.
I don't start writing a script until I can see it all in my head, then it's a matter of getting it down in white heat.
The simple act of writing down a goal and making a written plan for its accomplishment moves you to the top 3 percent.
I will not write a lame follow-up. It could take me 20 years. But I will never turn in a book that I'm not happy with.
I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
Everything that a painter did or that a writer wrote was a part of his training and preparation for what he was to do.
I hardly ever think about audience. I just try to tell a story for me. I write the kind of story I would like to read.
One of the least impressive liberties is the liberty to starve. This particular liberty is freely accorded to authors.
My songs have always had hope and perseverance in them - I never write songs that have no escape hatch, no positivity.
It's striking how commercially viable that impulse for instant intimacy is right now, especially in songs and writing.
My life is very busy with a lot of things, and so I don't get uninterrupted time. When I do, I can just write all day.
If you were to write your life motto, what would it say? Look out for number one? Or look out for the needs of others?
I believe in not quite knowing. A writer needs to be doubtful, questioning. I write out of curiosity and bewilderment.
If you can find collaborators whose strengths compliment your own, the result can be more than the sum of its authors.
When someone writes a really nasty piece about me. I think they're generally untrue because I think I'm a nice person.