Writing Quotes - Page 661

Software is inherently complicated. If you say to somebody I want an airline reservation system, to really say what you want in terms of overbooking and fares, and different airlines communicating with each or schedule changes, it's immensely complex. And so you can't write a program that's any simpler than that full specification.

When you program, you want to think you're writing the best possible program for the... for the task you're trying to solve.

Those who sniff decay in every shift of sense or alteration of usage do the language no service. Too often for such people the notion of good English has less to do with expressing ideas clearly than with making words conform to some arbitrary pattern.

I was hooked on writing. I mean, where else can you get paid for sticking your nose into somebody else's business?

Asking for advice about what you should write is a little like asking for help getting dressed. I can you tell you what I think looks good, but you have to wear it. And as every fashion victim knows, very few people look good in everything.

But I also believe there is enormous value in the piece of writing that goes no further than the one person for whom it was intended, that no combination of written words is more eloquent than those exchanged in letters between lovers or friends, or along the pale blue lines of private diaries, where people take communion with themselves.

I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible.

You can't write poems about trees when the woods are full of policemen.

Writing is a mode of being. If I write I live.

I write what I want to write. Period. I don't write novels-for-hire using media tie-in characters, I don't write suspense novels or thrillers. I write horror. And if no one wants to buy my books, I'll just keep writing them until they do sell--and get a job at Taco Bell in the meantime.

Write with the learned, pronounce with the vulgar.

As a director you already have a script, you have actors... you have collaborators when you're a director. When you're writing there's no one to collaborate with, there's no material to look at. I haven't adapted something yet, so, I'm sure that would be helpful. When you're writing an original piece you have nothing.

For me, the hardest part is getting up and writing, that's the hard part. I always felt like I could teach someone to direct if I really had to. I feel like it's a skill that's passable, but writing... writing is the worst. That's what I'm doing right now, it's just the hardest thing that you'll ever do.

Experiments with the "as if" of fiction are often more lively in poetry and criticism and other modes of writing than in weak short stories or novels.

I write songs and I sing them from the deepest part of my existence and I hope they connect with the deepest part of yours.

If I did things for the money, I'd have done adverts in the 1980s, when I was hot enough to be offered them, and 'Police Academy 6,' which I was asked to write.

I'm lucky because the strongest emotion I have ever felt is being in love, and that definitely informs my writing.

I enjoyed singing, I loved song writing, I loved recording. All those things that involves with creating music was great.

I lost my second marriage because of drinking, and I loved the woman very much. But I thought I needed booze to write. I'm glad I was disabused.

A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.

If you tell me, it's an essay. If you show me, it's a story.

The productiveness of any meeting depends on the level of thought given to the agenda in advance, and you should never leave a meeting without writing a follow-up list with each item assigned to one person. And go outside. All the big ideas are on the outside. You'll never have a creative idea at your desk.

To this day George Sr. is the soft touch and I'm the enforcer. I'm the one who writes them a letter and says 'Shape up!' He writes, 'You're marvelous.'

Everything I worry about would be better if more people could read, write and comprehend.

Basically, I am a night owl. My wife is an early bird, so she goes to bed around 9:30, and my kids are in bed about 8. So, if I am home, I will usually start writing about 9:30 and go till about 12:30 or 1:30, depending on what my energy level is.