Writing Quotes - Page 382

When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write...

Writers don't retire. I will always be a writer.

The difficulty of writing a good theatre play set in new reality was even greater given that the level of similitude to life that is allowed in a film would not work on the stage.

The best advice I can give to any aspiring author is to write every single day. Work at the craft of writing. Take it seriously.

Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which it is intended to express, whether verbally or in writing, or in any other way, the real process of thought. Thought's dictation, free from any control by the reason, independent of any aesthetic or moral preoccupation.

You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences.

The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you can't understand them. The best sentence? The shortest.

I write emotional algebra.

When I devoted myself to poetry - and poetry is a very serious medium - I don't think the people that knew me as an individual with that tongue-in-cheek kind of humor...well, it didn't always lend itself to my poetry. When you're writing poetry, it's like working with gold, you can't waste anything. You have to be very economical with each word you're going to select. But when you're writing fiction, you can just go on and on; you can be more playful. My editor's main task is to cut back, not ask for more.

I do not suppose that anyone not a poet can realize the agony of creating a poem. Every nerve, even every muscle, seems strained to the breaking point. The poem will not be denied; to refuse to write it would be a greater torture. It tears its way out of the brain, splintering and breaking its passage, and leaves that organ in the state of a jelly-fish when the task is done.

I feel like for me the lyric writing really comes from just what's going on in my heart and that's what consumes me; think a lot of our heart is relationships. Not just with boyfriend or girlfriend but all your relationships in your life with other people and our interactions with other humans.

I write by myself initially. That's the way I've always written, just working on pure thought by myself. Then I bring it to the table with whoever I'm collaborating with.

I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.

In writing a novel, the writer must be able to identify emotionally and intellectually with two or three or four contradicting perspectives and give each of them very a convincing voice. It's like playing tennis with yourself and you have to be on both sides of the yard. You have to be on both sides, or all sides if there are more than two sides.

What ultimately happened is that my country had a war. I think it would be extraordinary, as a writer, not to want to write about that.

If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.

The acting is something that will always be a part of my life, but the writing gives me a lot more creative freedom. You're a pawn in somebody else's chess game, whereas as a writer and as a director, you get to call the shots. And that's very thrilling.

Anyone nit-picking enough to write a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked it.

No matter what you write or choreograph, you feel it is not enough.

Like many authors, I caught the writing bug during my teenage years. I don't remember the exact day or year, but I remember that reading S.E. Hinton's 'The Outsiders' sparked my interest in writing.

Aaron Sorkin wrote me one of the best female roles on television, I think. He's a wonderful writer for all people. If he chooses to write, hopefully he'll write something that involves more women next time, because I would love to do it.

For many years I wrote nothing but "I will not sleep with Steve Almond" over and over again, page after page à la Jack Torrance in The Shining. Finally, hundreds of psychotherapy sessions and an intense shaman-guided DMT sweat lodge experience led to a breakthrough, and I was able to write about other people I would not sleep with, and also about people I would.

It's not that I have resisted songwriting, it's just not something I felt I have had to do. I've just not woken up and thought, I must do this. But I have often heard music that I have instantly felt 'I have to sing that song'

If I want to be alone, some place I can write, I can read, I can pray, I can cry, I can do whatever I want - I go to the bathroom.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.