Writing Quotes - Page 279

I understand now my father really thought he was doing me good. Education means a lot to Palestinians. We’ve become some of the most educated people in the world through our diaspora. We’ve had to be. When you ain’t got land, your degree may be your only solid ground. May father felt (feels) that being a doctor would give me security. How can I explain that I’m not safe from anything if I don’t write?

There's a gap somehow between empathy and activism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of 'soul force' - something that emanates from a deep truth inside of us and empowers us to act. Once you identify your inner genius, you will be able to take action, whether it's writing a check or digging a well.

Writing is self-taught. Consulting other people only teaches you to depend on their reactions, which may or may not be legitimate. Quit looking for approval ... Learn to evaluate your own work with a dispassionate eye ... the lessons you acquire will be all the more valuable because you've mastered your craft from within.

I was very impressed with Hanson's performance. I thought that little drummer was a kick-ass drummer, and uh, that they sang great, I mean I didn't know either, y'know, that these little boys, y'know, I was very impressed. I think they'll probably be around in 20 years writing good songs, and being a great band.

When I am writing I don't set a certain number of pages. I do know that the further into a script I get the faster it goes. As soon as you start making decisions you start cutting off all of the other possibilities of things that could happen. So with every decision that you make you are removing a whole bunch of other possibilities of where that story can go or what that character can do. So when I get maybe 2/3's of the way through I can see very clearly where it is going to go.

If you had a million Shakespeares, could they write like a monkey?

We all have a lot of people inside us, yet we get to live only one life. Fiction lets us slip into someone else’s skin, so to speak. That’s why we read novels, and also why we write them - to experience more life, through imagination.

Writers think in metaphors. Editors work in metaphors. A great reader reads in metaphors.

The conscious mind is the editor, and the subconscious mind is the writer. And the joy of writing, when you're writing from your subconscious, is beautiful - it's thrilling. When you're editing, which is your conscious mind, it's like torture.

I take editing seriously. It's a joy to edit. I always hand a manuscript to several editors and can't wait to get back their notes and see what they've said. I don't criticize myself for making blunders here and there, because it's just natural. You write in chunks, and you may not remember that that sentence you wrote yesterday had the same word repeated three times. I do enjoy that. I love the feeling of repairing. Repairing is really nice.

Greg Trooper writes great songs, including one of my very favorite songs in the world, Little Sister. On top of all that, there's his voice - an instrument I have coveted for 15 years.

The trick is always to write in pairs because if at least two people find it funny, you've immediately halved the odds of it not being funny.

You should always have 2 books...the one you're reading and the one you're writing.

I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.

Friendship, obligation and greed are not good enough reasons to write anything.

In the early 1970s, the northern hemisphere appeared to have been cooling at an alarming rate. There was frequent talk of a new ice age. Books and documentaries appeared, hypothesizing a snowblitz or sporting titles such as The Cooling. Even the CIA got into the act, sponsoring several meetings and writing a controversial report warning of threats to American security from the potential collapse of Third World Governments in the wake of climate change.

Despite my own doubts of being marketable or crushworthy, my goal was to write a record of peppy pop songs, hopefully without annoying anybody.

We're not on a desperate mission to write chart compatible stuff.

The first is that good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments. The second is that while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

The great thing about writing is that...you can do all these antisocial things and you get paid for them and nobody ever arrests you because they're all make-believe. Then that way if you were actually ever driven to do any of those things, the pressure's off because you'd have already written them down. It's therapy.

A short story is a different thing all together - a short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction. If not so, why do so many couples who start the evening at dinner wind up in bed?

The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time.