Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I started writing because I decided I was too old to play pretend in the backyard. Then I found that I could create those imaginary worlds on the page.
It's terrible to write what are essentially comedies for people with no sense of humor. Everyone thinks they have a sense of humor, but observably not.
As a comedian, I'm like one of those on-the-scene reporters. I will actually go and try to find disasters so I can write jokes as the disasters unfold.
I don't have much of an imagination, but I have a mind bank of details, which I play with. It's how I daydream, so writing like that is natural for me.
I am a student of universal spiritual principles, and I read theology and spiritual writings, so my grasp of basic spiritual principles is fairly good.
We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.
In the same way that a woman becomes a prostitute. First I did it to please myself, then I did it to please my friends, and finally I did it for money.
Some PhD physicists write software or work for hedge funds, but physics still has a problem with having very smart people but not enough opportunities.
Faithfulness to the past can be a kind of death above ground. Writing of the past is a resurrection; the past then lives in your words and you are free.
Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself.
I admired what my students were writing, but I think their improvement doesn't directly result from me but from being in a class, being with each other.
The first thing that attracts me to any script is the writing. If I find myself becoming lost in a good yarn, then I feel certain that others will, too.
The actual materials are important. A book at the nightstand is important - a light you can get at - or a flashlight as Kerouac had a brakeman's latern.
A hundred cabinet-makers in London can work a table or a chair equally well; but no one poet can write verses with such spirit and elegance as Mr. Pope.
It was unavoidable, my writing. I feel I had no choice in the matter, no more than I had about an unfortunate bone structure and a healthy head of hair.
Similarly, although we use prepositional phrases when we write, we apparently don't write more effectively when we can label our language in these ways.
No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.
The obvious reductio ad absurdum is Holocaust deniers: Should their perspective be provided, for "balance," any time someone writes about the Holocaust?
In a notable family called Stein There were Gertrude, and Ep, and then Ein. Gert's writing was hazy, Ep's statues were crazy, And nobody understood Ein.
If I have to write on an airplane or get up early to write or write late, you just gotta sit down. When you have the time, you have to be able to do it.
O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.
By its very looseness, by its way of evoking rather than defining, suggesting rather than saying, English is a magnificent vehicle for emotional poetry.
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.
Songs are kind of alive, I think; once you finish writing them, that doesn't mean that that's it for the song. It can have its own little life, I think.
When you write, you're supposed to go stand somewhere else for a while, see things from a perspective that's not in line with your own reflexive truths.
When not writing and directing, my bread and butter comes from acting and stunt work. I've been fortunate enough to be part of some amazing productions.
I can't imagine why everybody is always so keen for authors to talk about writing. I should have thought it was an author's business to write, not talk.
There is a part of me in every character, naturally. That's why novelists rarely write good autobiographies. You start one and it becomes another novel.
All I had was the will and the love for music. I couldn't read music or write it. No connections, no car, no money, no bankroll, no clothes, no nothing.
That is one more reason why I write in English only right now. I prefer writing in the language I hear around me for the people by whom I am surrounded.
The different part of writing and singing worship lies in the identity and truth of God's Word and true intention for us as His followers on this Earth.
A novel is not a summary of its plot but a collection of instances, of luminous specific details that take us in the direction of the unsaid and unseen.
Write on my gravestone: 'Infidel, Traitor.', infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.
In my long, long years toiling around the publishing industry, I've found that women simply don't stick to the writing with the same fervor that men do.
I don't have the desire to be the best standup in the UK but I do have the desire to be the best at everything else I do in terms of writing and acting.
Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created - nothing.
That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.
The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.
Newton took no exercise, indulged in no amusements, and worked incessantly, often spending eighteen or nineteen hours out of the twenty-four in writing.
You have to write a good score that you feel good about. At least, you're supposed to. But, if the director hates it, it ain't going to be in the movie!
When I write, I try to represent the ordinary person in the pew, which means that, ironically, I'm qualified to write about prayer by being unqualified!
If you have other things in your life-family, friends, good productive day work-these can interact with your writing and the sum will be all the richer.
I wrote a script. I actually enjoyed writing it more than acting. It's about the Irish rebellion of 1920, which is a fascinating period and place for me
You know, I had the music baskets and the writing basket. And I had the acting. And those eggs just hatched first, and the others were slow to incubate.
When you're on a staff, it's not your job to write what you think is funny. It's your job to write what the person who created the show thinks is funny.
As Jules Renard said, no matter how much care an author takes to write as few books as possible, there will be people who haven't heard of some of them.
I write for somebody who has my own limitations. My reader has a certain difficulty with concentrating, which in my case comes from being a film viewer.
If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best", you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.
Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates.
All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. It's much more relaxing to actually write.