Writing Quotes - Page 308

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day ... you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don't think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.

I am deeply sensitive to the spell of nationalism. I can play about thirty Bohemian folk songs ... on my mouth-organ. My oldest friend, who is Czech and a patriot, cannot bear to hear me play them because he says I do it in such a schmalzy way, 'crying into the mouth organ'. I do not think I could have written the book on nationalism which I did write, were I not capable of crying, with the help of a little alcohol, over folk songs, which happen to be my favourite form of music.

To write history is so difficult that most historians are forced to make concessions to the technique of legende.

Writing the book automatically made me accept myself and love myself more.

The next step will be for the colonists on Mars to throw off the hand of the United States. There will be this wonderful historical irony. When the people on Mars write a declaration of independence saying, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident...', the US will be rather pissed off.

The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas.

It's not enough to create magic. You have to create a price for magic, too. You have to create rules.

The writing of a melody is an emotional moment; success doesn't make it easy.

[Doing a bilingual album] helped artistically because whenever I got bored of writing in English, I would write in Spanish. It's always cool when you have the choice.

I was studying the impacts of fishing on ocean life, while the places that I loved so much continued to decline: less and smaller fish, less corals, and more microbes. I found myself writing the obituary of nature with increasing precision. Unsatisfied and frustrated, I felt like a doctor telling the patient how she is going to die, with excruciating detail. If I were that patient, I would have fired myself and looked for a doctor who would look for a solution.

I do not keep a diary. Never have. To write a diary every day is like returning to one's own vomit.

I really want to write a novel. I also want to learn to play the mandolin.

I paint and I draw and I write and I do other things too, and recently some people at school were asking if I'd ever publish any of my work. But I almost feel like I would have to publish it under another name because there's a definition of me out there that feels kind of stuck in the moment when it was formed.

I wish I gardened. I don't have a space for a garden. I'm in an apartment in New York but I do lots of stuff. I read and write and hang out with people. I go see movies.

I am never going to write for the sake of writing.

The nature of making music and making art, what motivates me is that it's interesting. It's interesting to listen, to really listen to other people's point-of-view. Take in their work. Listen to the way they sing. Listen to the way they write lyrics. What they are trying to express.

I try to write about real women, real people - in other words flawed characters. I find flawed characters much more interesting than perfect ones and enjoy the challenge of making readers root for them in spite of their unsympathetic path and destructive choices. Life is about the gray areas. Things are seldom black and white, even when we wish they were and think they should be, and I like exploring this nuanced terrain.

To write books is to have a certain relation with original sin. For what is a book if not a loss of innocence, an act of aggression, a repetition of our Fall?

Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.

I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But sometimes criticism can be hurtful. Be respectful I'm a good piano player, I can sing well, I write good songs. If you don't like it, fair enough. But give me a break.

I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

I've quit writing screenplay [adaptations]. It's too much work. I don't look at writing a novel as work, because I only have to please myself. I have a good time sitting here by myself, thinking up situations and characters, getting them to talk - it's so satisfying. But screenwriting's different. You might think you're writing for yourself, but there are too many other people to please.

I'm not going to write for posterity. I'm going to write to make a buck.

As far back as I remember, long before I could write, I had played at making stories. But not until I was seven or more, did I begin to pray every night, "O God, let me write books! Please, God, let me write books!"