As soon as I sat down to write music, really, with Café Blue. I just can't think about that when I sit down to write. I don't let myself. I actually don't allow myself to look at sales figures. Ever. I get the general impression that I'm not selling like Norah Jones, but I don't really pay too much attention, because I think it would corrupt me.
I never thought I could write anything or do a show sober, ever. But I did the Black Sabbath shows sober, and it was so much better fun for me, and everybody.
I listen to some of the lyrics I used to write and I say, "Where was my head at when I wrote that?"
I was able to notice in a very early stage, there were discrepancies between the people who are writing the songs and discrepancies about the self that I was writing about. I was feeling that there were all these different people, both writing the record and having the record being written about them, even though ostensibly it was me sitting down and documenting a series of life experiences. Part of that, when I recognized this unconscious thing I was doing, was about these spaces, about these gaps.
The thing is, when you're kind of creatively self-employed, your brain just kind of chooses the path of least resistance, so if you really exhausted and you've had a long day, then that's typically when you might respond to emails or if you're on a plane and have nothing else to do, then you might listen to music and write these satirical pieces trying to explain the charts with music theory.
Writing for film is so different; it's such an act of submission, both on a monetary and time level, because you basically kind of have to just set everything else aside - it's like suddenly getting a temp job that requires you to work 16-hour days. Also just aesthetically, you have to completely leave all of your ego out of it.
Chief Justice [John] Roberts compared judges to umpires, who apply rules they did not write and cannot change to the competition before them.
I believe strongly in an author's moral responsibility. But his first obligation is to write good books.
I need a moment of time for myself every day, like a child playing with his things. When I travel, I routinely find a quiet place, open my diary and write something in it.
For years I've advocated keeping a gratitude journal, writing down five things every day that brought pleasure and gratefulness.
writing = ass + chair
I'm not an activist. I'm a filmmaker. I'm a dramatist. My strength is to tell a story, to find a way to tell a story that makes it exciting. Our Untold History was a huge challenge. Snowden was no piece of cake, because writing code and breaking code is some of the most boring stuff you've ever seen.
I feel like I've got so much to do, from a music perspective. Jamie's done his record and traveled around the world with it. Romy did all those writing sessions. I would love to do what Romy's done and experience that other side of the pop machine. It sounds terrifying and, at times, a little bit soulless. That's a real pet peeve of mine, when people talk about songwriting in a cynical way. But having said that I still want to do it, just to know what it's like.
Even when I cannot write, I know I am still a writer, just the way I know I am still sexual even if I have not had a lover for many months.
It's interesting how many science fiction writers get going when they are very young. I was on a program with Greg Bear and he mentioned that he had gotten started writing when he was eight. And I began writing when I was 10. I think we're influenced by the stuff, we find it and we love it and we're influenced by it....I know I collected my first rejection slip when I was 13, and I went on collecting them for a long time after that.
I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.
...I can write my own stories and I can write myself in.
Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.
My current project is my band, Population 1. We are writing, rehearsing and playing in Los Angeles.
Writing: I certainly do rewrite my central myth in every book, and would never read or trust any writer who did not also do so.
Writing for a newspaper is like running a revolutionary war. You go to battle not when you are ready, but when action offers itself.
In some ways I'm a reticent man, and for quite a number of years there wasn't very much of my real true deep feelings in my writing.
The most important thing is you can't write what you wouldn't read for pleasure. It's a mistake to analyze the market thinking you can write whatever is hot. You can't say you're going to write romance when you don't even like it. You need to write what you would read if you expect anybody else to read it.
One of the best things about directing movies, as opposed to merely writing them, is that there's no confusion about who's to blame: You are.
I think you often have that sense when you write--that if you can spot something in yourself and set it down on paper, you're free of it. And you're not, of course; you've just managed to set it down on paper, that's all.
