Writing Quotes - Page 1032

I didn't start running because somebody asked me to become a runner. Just like I didn't become a novelist because someone asked me to. One day, out of the blue, I wanted to write a novel. And one day, out of the blue, I started to run-simply because I wanted to. I've always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I'm wrong, but I won't change.

Since I have come to America, I am often asked whether my next novel will be set in America. I don't think it will. I think I will be living in America for some time to come, but while living in America, I would like to write about Japanese society from the outside.

Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o'clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me.

It's true that at the time I was fond of Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and it was from them that I learned about this kind of simple, swift-paced style, but the main reason for the style of my first novel is that I simply did not have the time to write sustained prose.

I think history is collective memories. In writing, I'm using my own memory, and I'm using my collective memory.

I think memory is the most important asset of human beings. It's a kind of fuel; it burns and it warms you. My memory is like a chest: There are so many drawers in that chest, and when I want to be a fifteen-year-old boy, I open up a certain drawer and I find the scenery I saw when I was a boy in Kobe. I can smell the air, and I can touch the ground, and I can see the green of the trees. That's why I want to write a book.

Stories lie deep in our souls. Stories lie so deep at the bottom of our hearts that they can bring people together on the deepest level. When I write a novel, I go into such depths.

It's just like sex; when [a book is] finished, it's finished.

If I choose to write about sheep, it's just because I happened to write about sheep. There is no deep significance.

Most of what I know about writing I've learned through running every day.

Writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.

I had my jazz club and I had enough money. So I didn't have to write for my living.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

Perhaps I'm just too painstaking a type of person, but I can't grasp much of anything without putting down my thoughts in writing.

I'm not a fast reader. I like to linger over each sentence, enjoying the style. If I don't enjoy the writing, I stop.

George Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I'm 100 percent fiction writer... I don't want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don't state my political messages to anybody.

The good thing about writing book is that you can dream while you are awake.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

I first tried a novel when I was 14. First finished one when I was 16. First started working on stuff that had a chance of being salable in my early 20s, then didn't write much fiction at all because I was in grad school.

I learned by reading an awful lot and by writing a half a million words of stuff nobody would do anything with except wrap old fish.

It's a real testament to the amount of skill and talent involved, across the board, whether it's the production design, the construction, the costume design, the other actors, the way it's shot, the directors we had on it, or obviously John's writing. When things do go well, it sometimes seems easy, in a weird way, but it's actually down to a lot of cogs working in a big machine. But, I'm certainly happy to be going back. I'm excited to carry on.

I think it's amazing to have one writer write every episode of a series. It's very rare, I think. You get a voice that continues.

What I said about John was that he liberated me from my anxieties about writing in a correct, acceptable way.

Write about the things that attract you. Choose your subjects the way you used to choose your toys: out of desire.

It helps to read the sentence aloud.