Writing Quotes - Page 361

I write to understand my circumstances, to sort out the confusion of reality, to exorcise my demons. But most of all, I write because I love it!

My grandfather was dying, and told the family he had decided to die. ... At that moment I wanted so badly to write and tell him that he was never going to die, that somehow he would always be present in my life, because he had a theory that death didn't exist, only forgetfulness did. He believed that if you can keep people in your memory, they will live forever. That's what he did with my grandmother.

Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.

I wanted to write a battle song for the Judeans but so far I can think of nothing noble and weighty enough

As I am writing, another illustration of ye generation of hills proposed above comes into my mind. Milk is as uniform a liquor as ye chaos was. If beer be poured into it & ye mixture let stand till it be dry, the surface of ye curdled substance will appear as rugged & mountanous as the Earth in any place.

We were writing songs about girls when we still thought girls had cooties.

When a writer tries to explain too much, he's out of time before he begins.

If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy.

Unfortunately, in many cases, people who write science fiction violate the laws of nature, not because they want to make a point, but because they don't know what the laws of nature are.

From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task -- such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping -- I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something.

Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject ... they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules.

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

The first step in making rabbit stew is catching the rabbit.

Every novelist has a different purpose-and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.

Basically, particularly in Britain, it's a hegemonic thing that people who write tend to come from the leisure classes. They can afford the time and the books.

The establishment, the newspapers, they try to create something called Scottish literature, but when people are actually going to write, they are not going to necessarily prescribe to that, they'll write what they feel.

You know, I think everybody I've seen has come from some other therapy, and almost invariably it's very much the same thing: the therapist is too disinterested, a little too aloof, a little too inactive. They're not really interested in the person, he doesn't relate to the person. All these things I've written so much about. That's why I've made such a practice really, over and over to hammer home the point of self-revelation and being more of yourself and showing yourself. Every book I write I want to get that in there.

I like writing in an illustrative, descriptive way. I prefer describing to rather than explaining.

Your first duty as a writer is to write to please yourself. And you have no duty towards anyone else.

My grand plan is that I can master having a better life by making sure I have a regular flow of songs. Then I can give myself time to tour or celebrate or write a film score.

No one can ever write about anything that happened to him after he was twelve years old.

The hardest period for a writer is the period in-between writing. That's when you can go crazy if you don't allow the creative juices to flow.

I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No - it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.

As a friendly one. I would still like to write concrete poems, but I can only do it sometimes.