Writing Quotes - Page 947

I always thought it was important to overdeliver, and when I got one of my first jobs, writing jokes for Garry Shandling when he was hosting the Grammys, I stayed up all night and wrote a hundred jokes, and I thought, "I'm always going to be the person that gives them more than they requested, and that's why they'll want to keep me around."

Right when I started getting solid was when I was offered a lot of writing work. And when The Ben Stiller Show was picked up, I realized there was no way for me to do stand-up three or four nights a week and run this television show with Ben. So that was the moment when I had to make a choice.

I just try to be true to myself and write about things I'm passionate about. I think what most people don't like about movies is they can tell that most movies are a product, and they don't mean that much to the people who make them.

I'm getting older, so how people face grave circumstances is of interest to me. And you meet a lot of people who are very courageous, and it doesn't reek of something funny to write about, but I always think that the higher the stakes, the bigger the laughs can be, and the more emotional the scenes can be.

I start casting early in the writing process, so I can tailor the script to the gifts of the actors.

[My] dream writers room: "'Taxi.' I need to write for someone named Judd."

You have to write a lot of scripts to get any scripts that are worth making.

I like when people are very passionate about what they want to write about. Even if it's silly, you can be very passionate about it.

I don't think it matters what the frequency is of me writing or directing a movie. It doesn't really matter to anybody else. I'm just trying to put good things out there.

My first writing jobs were writing Tom Arnold specials for HBO, so I love working there.

I think people like Lena Dunham really opened up the door to what was possible, and they've inspired young women to go into filmmaking and writing and directing and acting in a way that maybe they didn't before, because now there is a path and there are jobs.

I'm the guy who gets uncomfortable. That's why I was able to write 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin' and 'Knocked Up.' I believe in those guys.

Jarrid Wilson has a passion and heart for God that is contagious. His genuine faith comes through powerfully in his teaching and writing. 30 Words points to the God of all wonder and grace in a way that will expand your faith and experience of God.

Always when I write my music, I take my guitar, and I improvise always with a melody, you know, lyrics in Spanish. But sometimes I use some words in English. I don't know why. Maybe because I listen to a lot of music in English.

It's actually very hard to find an area of the economy that doesn't fundamentally change in the measure that we are able to read and write life code.

Not only are we reading life code, we're beginning to copy it through cloning, and we're beginning to write, and in the measure that we do that, boy, you can build a lot of very powerful companies in a short period of time.

The difference between people who can read and write and those who can't is just absolutely astronomical.

I am not a writer except when I write.

Haiti is the best cure against melancholy; it is also the most creative place for me to be. My productivity has increased enormously since I moved to Haiti. That's where I write my stories, develop my ideas and write nonstop, so it's a productive time, not a sleepy time.

When people ask what I write about, that's what I tell them: 'The drama of human relationships.' I'm not even close to running out of material.

I have long observed that the act of writing is viewed, by some, as an elite and otherworldly act, all the more so if a person isn't paid for what she writes.

If a man wishes to truly not be written about, he would do well not to write letters to 18-year-old girls, inviting them into his life.

It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful.

I mean, sitcoms shouldn't be doing 'Saturday Night Live.' You can't just do bit after bit after bit. You have to string it together with tight writing and performances. Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to do this.

One of the qualities of writing that is not much stressed is its problem-solving aspect, having to do with the presentation of material: how to structure it, what sort of sentences (direct, elliptical, simple or compound, syntactically elaborate), what tone (in art, "tone" is everything), pacing. Paragraphing is a way of dramatization, as the look of a poem on a page is dramatic; where to break lines, where to end sentences.