It was a great place to write a novel about book burning, in the library basement.
Everything of mine is permeated with my love of ideas-both big and small. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it grabs me and holds me, facinates me. And then I'll run out and something about it... I write for fun.
I started writing every day. I never stopped.
I never consciously place symbolism in my writing. That would be a self-conscious exercise and self-consciousness is defeating to any creative act. Better to get the subconscious to do the work for you, and get out of the way. The best symbolism is always unsuspected and natural. During a lifetime, one saves up information which collects itself around centers in the mind; these automatically become symbols on a subliminal level and need only be summoned in the heat of writing.
I am a dedicated madman, and that becomes its own training. If you can't resist, if the typewriter is like candy to you, you train yourself for a lifetime. Every single day of your life, some wild new thing to be done. You write to please yourself. You write for the joy of writing. Then your public reads you and it begins to gather around your selling a potato peeler in an alley, you know. The enthusiasm, the joy itself draws me. So that means every day of my life I've written. When the joy stops, I'll stop writing.
You either have an imaginative mind or you don't. All of my writing is God-given. I don't write my stories - they write themselves.
Lone at night, when I was twelve years old, I looked at the planet Mars and I said, 'Take me home!' And the planet Mars took me home, and I never came back. So I've written every day in the last 75 years. I've never stopped writing.
There are certain kinds of people who write science fiction. I think a lot of us married late. A lot of us are mama's boys. I lived at home until I was 27. But most of the writers I know in any field, especially science fiction, grew up late. They're so interested in doing what they do and in their science, they don't think about other things.
Kids love me because I write stories that tell them about their capacity for evil. I'm one of the few writers who lets you cleanse yourself that way.
I don’t write things to benefit the world. If it happens that they do, swell. I didn’t set out to do that. I set out to have a hell of a lot of fun.
All of my writing is God-given.
You have to be very productive in order to become excellent. You have to go through a poor period and a mediocre period, and then you move into your excellent period. It may be very well be that some of you have done quite a bit of writing already. You maybe ready to move into your good period and your excellent period. But you shouldn't be surprised if it becomes a very long process.
You will have to write and put away or burn a lot of material before you are comfortable in this medium. You might as well start now and get the work done. For I believe that eventually quantity will make for quality.
It's really fun to write cuss words. Just in general.
I love romantic comedies. I have a deep respect for them. I think they're really difficult to write and write well.
When you're writing, at least when I'm writing, I don't think about themes and I try not to sermonize with any particular message.
I had been writing since I was pretty small, and I've always been telling these stories about doors and finding other worlds within our own.
The tough thing about writing is you go into a room alone, you close the door and you do your work.
I have never thought of writing as hard work, but I have worked hard to find a voice.
The juices never stop flowing. I still write songs.
The writing part of my life never changes, because that's just when the inspiration comes.
I love writing songs. I love doing my radio show and talking to the fans and listening to what they have to say, but there's a certain responsibility that comes along with being given the gift of music. I take that seriously, but at the same time I try to use it to do something that makes a difference in a positive way.
Mostly, I don't write overtly personal stuff.
The easiest thing I do is assignment songs. They tell me what they need me to write. I can do that fairly quickly. Writing for an orchestra is difficult. Writing songs [on your own] is most difficult of all. Though [writing for] the orchestra is close.
I like the performing. And interviews, even. And the stuff that's not sitting in a room by yourself with empty paper. But I never loved writing, to tell you the truth.
