Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Different people were good at different things, Lena mused. Lena was good at writing thank-you notes, for instance, and Effie was good at being happy.
I discovered Orson Welles in college; my freshman English professor screened 'Citizen Kane' for us, and I wound up writing a 20-page term paper on it.
You have a touch in letter writing that is beyond me. Something unexpected, like coming round a corner in a rose garden and finding it still daylight.
Whenever you talk about writing I think you have to remember that it all has a big question mark over it - every word has a big question mark over it.
When I'm writing a record, I kind of don't listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.
Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man who liked to think and talk better than to read or write; who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote.
I've been a comedian for a long time so writing and performing is a big part of what I do. If anybody's doing comedy they should also work on writing.
I could tell you which writer's rhythms I am imitating. It's not exactly plagiarism, it's falling in love with good language and trying to imitate it.
I don't think you can separate a person's "style" and his persona. If you're writing or improvising honestly, you will inevitably reflect who you are.
I identify with the characters very closely. At the same time that I`m outside, writing, I`m also inside, experiencing, and it can be very unsettling.
The deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the mind of the producer...No good novel will ever proceed from a superficial mind.
Mozart wrote so many works in his thirty-five years that it would take a lifetime just to write out the notes. We literally do not know how he did it.
I'm nothing. Nothing at all without writing. Without truth, my truth, the only truth I know, it's all a gambol in the pasture without rhythm or sense.
I really like to travel when I write. Something about seeing new things and being in new cultures and environments provokes new thoughts in your head.
Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without at least one murder.
Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don't let anything else interfere. Afterwards it won't matter to you that the kitchen is a mess.
The writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do... Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how.
I think my prose reads as if English were my second language. By the time I get to the end of a paragraph, I'm dodging bullets and gasping for breath.
Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it.
I devoted myself to writing for years without representation or a promise of anything. And there were times when I felt quite down about my prospects.
When I was about 13, 14 - 13, I would carry a magic marker with me everywhere I went so I could write the word "Bowie" on everything that wasn't mine.
Don't outline your stories. A lot of fiction workshops say you should. I say the opposite. I quote Grace Paley: "We write what we don't know we know."
I know writers who write only when inspiration comes. How would Isaac Stern play if he played the violin only when he felt like it? He would be lousy.
God calls me to write the truth of my life transparently so that others can learn from my hurt and heartache without taking the field trip themselves.
I don't think they [contemporary writers] read me either. I mean, if we're concerned genuinely with writing, I think we probably get on with our work.
And you know there’s nothing like writing a song about someone who’s mean to you, and just makes your life miserable…and then winning a Grammy for it.
I write almost every single part of my songs, even the actual drum parts sometimes, whether they be simple or layered with many different instruments.
I don't want to name any names, but I've worked on television shows where there's a guy writing for my generation who's like 60 - and it doesn't work.
I've had some success at writing and directing, and I like it. It's infinitely more creative than just acting, and I have things I want to say and do.
Short stories do not say this happened and this happened and this happened. They are a microcosm and a magnification rather than a linear progression.
But our wounds are part of who we are...and there is nothing left to chance....And pain's the pen that writes the songs....That call us forth to dance
I choose to think of tv audience as nameless, formless, faceless people who are all like me. And anything that I write, if I like it, they'll like it.
I believe that, in an ideal world, writers would feel free to write what matters to them without having to consider success, failure, the market, etc.
My first instinct when I write songs is not a negative one. It's something positive... Everything I've ever done has some form of hope in it, I think.
When I write my books, actually I'm known for very logical rule-based magic systems. I write with one foot in fantasy and one foot in science fiction.
I'm a bit like a sponge. When I'm not writing I absorb life like water. When I write I squeeze the sponge a little - and out comes, not water but ink.
I find that if somebody is writing and drawing a comic book, planning it to be a movie and a game at the same time tends to lead to a pretty lame job.
It took me to about maybe 16, 17 or 18 or something to realise I was absolutely useless at everything else except for playing guitar and writing words
Learn your instrument. Be honest. Don't do anything phony. There is so much crap floating around. There is plenty of room for a bit of honest writing.
I write four or five a books a year. That means that I usually have one on the go. I am fortunate in being able to write quickly - 1000 words an hour.
I wanted to be a scientist. I did a thesis on lions. But I realised photography can show things writing can't. Lions were my professor of photography.
If you want to write for yourself, get a diary. If you want to write for your friends, get a blog. If you want to write for others...become an author.
I never liked writing concluding paragraphs to papers - where you repeat what you've already said with phrases like 'In summation', and 'To conclude'.
Whatever else I know, I know that if you invest love and care in any individual you can help them to make a difference, to write their own life story.
There's nothing as perfect as the initial idea. And the only reason I write and direct is to protect the writing, because that's what's most precious.
The spoken word community was significant in making me want to write accessible and urgent poems. Bob Holman, in particular, was an impressive figure.
It doesn't take long to write things of which you know nothing. When you write of actual things, it takes longer, because you have to live them first.
I write about what I want to write about, and so the film comes out as a very personal expression even if its subject matter is totally prefabricated.
I'm always aware of writing around things I can't do, and I've come to think that that's actually what 'style' is - an avoidance of your deficiencies.
There are two things John and I always do when we're going to sit down and write a song. First of all we sit down. Then we think about writing a song.