Writing Quotes - Page 386

When I write in Hebrew, I don't look for sophistication in music; it's just pure emotion that comes out.

With films, I just scribble a couple of notes for a scene. You don't have to do any writing at all, you just have your notes for the scene, which are written with the actors and the camera in mind. The actual script is a necessity for casting and budgeting, but the end product often doesn't bear much resemblance to the script--at least in my case.

I never have an alter ego in the movies. That's a fiction that the press has made up over the years, and it's fun to write that. It gives them something to write.

My films are misinterpreted all the time. I don't mind that. Everybody's films are misinterpreted. But there's no malice or stupidity in the people that misinterpret them. You know what you do, but someone else sees it, and they want to talk about it or write about it, and so they misinterpret them.

When I'm writing something, if there's a part that's good for me, then I'll play it. Otherwise, I don't. And I notice that there are less and less parts for me in my own writing.

What people who don't write don't understand is that they think you make up the line consciously — but you don't. It proceeds from your unconscious. So it's the same surprise to you when it emerges as it is to the audience when the comic says it. I don't think of the joke and then say it. I say it and then realize what I've said. And I laugh at it, because I'm hearing it for the first time myself.

There is an advantage in having a routine and working with the same people when you can and in writing as a regular thing and filming as a regular thing. That routine pays off for you. You get a lot of productivity that way, rather than sitting around waiting for inspiration and waiting for the perfect thing to happen. I would be much less productive that way.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

Writing a book is an adventure.

It would be great if teenagers could make movies. It's sad how some writers think they can write about stuff they don't understand.

the damned book I am writing is like the driveling of a weak-kneed sea calf. If I were sufficiently strong minded, I should tear it up an start again. But I don't.

Why, why, when one writes, does a sort of shackle bind one's imagination? I become conscious of a deadening mediocrity, perhaps a form of mental cowardice, and I long to break free, to let my imagination take wings. It doesn't - yet.

Anybody who can write home for money can write for magazines.

(Songwriting) It's a gift. It all comes from somewhere. I started out really young, when I was four, five, six, writing poems, before I could play an instrument. I was writing about things when I was eight or 10 years old that I hadn't lived long enough to experience.

I don't remember Moses writing, 'Thou shalt not kill.. unless you think you have a good reason.

I like myself better when I'm writing regularly.

Writers can write to affirm and to celebrate, or they can write to debunk and destroy; the choice is ours.

Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost.

Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.

A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.

The best way to learn to write is to study the work of the men and women who are doing the kind of writing you want to do.

Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.

Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know-and what we don't know-about whatever we're trying to learn.

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.

Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost. The idea is hard to accept. We all have emotional equity in our first draft; we can't believe that it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn't.