Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Sit down every day and DO IT. Writing is a self-taught craft; the more you work at it, the more skilled you become. And when you're not writing, READ.
But when you get to a song, not only do you have to do a vocal melody, you have to write words and not be redundant and make some semblance of a story
Worry destroys the ability to write. Ill health is bad in the ratio that it produces worry which attacks your subconscious and destroys your reserves.
Experience is an author's most valuable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood into the book he writes.
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.
In a country this large and a language even larger ... there ought to be a living for somebody who cares and wants to entertain and instruct a reader.
If you get a song right for its usage at the time, it can be useful to others. ...Those songs are more friendly to other artists looking for material.
With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under ground.
Once you're imagining being the main character, and you're having the conversations and actually being there, the magic in fiction writing takes over.
Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge. Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words when short are best of all.
There's already a great deal to do writing the songs. And if I were completely in control of it, nobody would be able to say "this song doesn't work."
Writing a play, you start with less, so more is demanded of you. It's as if you have to not only write a symphony, but invent the instruments as well.
If you want to be a writer, don't worry so much about writing. Read as much as you can. Read as many different writers as you can. Soak up the styles.
If I had simply wanted to trade on an insult to Islam, I could have done it in a sentence rather than writing a 250,000-word novel, a work of fiction.
Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces.
I wouldn’t be able to write a song like “Someone Like You” and get someone else to sing it because it’s so personal. It’s like giving away your heart.
An actor shouldn't have to leave the set and go home and write a bunch of stuff for a bunch of other people, the next day. I found it very unpleasant.
As far as the writing goes, I started telling stories as soon as I could talk, and started writing them down as soon as I could string words together.
A major writer combines these three - storyteller, teacher, enchanter - but it is the enchanter in him that predominates and makes him a major writer.
Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.
I don't have any desire to retire in the sense of not doing anything. As long as the Lord gives me strength I want to keep writing and keep preaching.
I'm not working on anything. I was trying to write something new . . . I guess the goal for me now, at least at this point, is to try to direct again.
Down the road a bit, I would like to write a couple of stand-alone adult novels, especially in the horror genre. I've got lots of things up my sleeve.
Probably careful plotting reflects my personality. I am meticulous by nature. I can't imagine speed-writing anything that happens to pop into my head.
I found it really disturbing to see a novelist writing a diatribe about Islam and Muslim radical extremists, blurring the distinction between the two.
Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.
Poetry is a language for when you can't quite write prose about something, you can't quite say it, but if you do a poem, it kind of gets to the point.
Starting writing is stressful and scary and hard, but also, it's just like going to the gym. You're just stiff and weird, and you can't do it as well.
Writers need restrictions. If somebody just says, "Hey, do you want to write a novel, or an article, or a movie, or a short story, you get shut down."
I'm not used to writing about happy emotions, I'm just used to pulling from my sad or angry - happy emotions are very hard for me to portray in music.
Whisper to the flashing water your real name, write your signature in the sand, and shout your identity to the sky until it answers to you in thunder.
The only reason I would write a sequel is if I were struck by an idea that I felt to be equal to the original. Too many sequels diminish the original.
I enjoy the drawing more than the writing, so I try to think of ideas that will allow me to develop the visual side of the strip as fully as possible.
Writing is my love. If you love something, you find a lot of time. I write for two hours a day, usually starting at midnight; at times, I start at 11.
I unfolded the note, and it took me a few seconds to decipher Adrian’s writing. If he did write me a dating proposal, I really hoped he would type it.
When my own writing needs a perk, I open Zukofsky and read from "A" - particularly sections "22" and "23." It can be opaque, but I love the intensity.
Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!
The idea to make hotel reviews the form of the novel came first. So I just started writing hotel reviews and tried to come up with a consistent voice.
I've been trying to write really simple songs to make them sound like they're coming out of a satellite that's crashing into a gas giant or something.
I got a call from an agent to come to New York City, and write for the 'Ford Star Revue.' Because at the time there wasn't much 'national television'.
Painting for process is the visual equivalent of journal writing, done not for the sake of being seen or published, but purely for the telling itself.
The less I talk in bars, write emails, express myself in an emotionally lewd way outside of my songwriting, the more I have to do it through my music.
So I be written in the Book of Love. I do not care about that Book Above. Erase my name, or write it as you will. So I be written in the Book of Love.
Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.
It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating ones own creativity - thats a much tougher matter.
I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can’t be like any other author’s really.
There aint any news in being good. You might write the doings of all the convents of the world on the back of a postage stamp, and have room to spare.
A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.
My mind immediately shot to South Africa the moment I sat down to think what I was going to write, what I was going to say. There was no other choice.
The idea of directing was something that I always had in the back of my mind, and writing as well. I began to write screenplays when I was in my 20's.