Writing Quotes - Page 961

Some people talk of writer's block - you got all of these ideas but nothing happens. The truth is, there's no such thing as writer's block. It's to the degree that you want to write. The thing is that these things show up whenever they feel like it.

The writer, like everyone else, is equipped in infancy with a thick padding of things he believes to be true, but which aren't.

I'm not really one to be on camera, I'd rather be writing songs.

As far as when I'm writing a song, I think I'm writing first and foremost for myself.

If you're recording the song on your four-track in your kitchen, when you finished writing the song, you're recording, and it's cool, and honor that. And maybe that's the version that should be released. And if you're recording the song again, it shouldn't be because there's a version you love that you're chasing. It should be because "You know what? I made a recording, but I don't love it emotionally." So, okay, then record again. And be in it and take advantage of the buzz and energy of "I'm getting to record right now!" It's such a beautiful and cool privilege.

Writing a book about yourself is like therapy, and you go 'Oh My God, that's the reason that happened.' Writing about it, you're forced to really examine things.

Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music.

I really had a great time working with Modest Mouse, just because of the people. I loved writing songs with Isaac Brock, and Jeremiah Green is probably my favorite musician that I've worked with.

One of the greatest things I've ever seen happen was the morning I opened the newspaper and it said that some very powerful government officials had decided to change the name of “french fries” to “freedoom fries” and “french toast” to “freedom toast”. It was impressive. I wanted to write a letter to them just to thank them, just for proving globally that they were absolute imbeciles.

An actor shouldn't have to leave the set and go home and write a bunch of stuff for a bunch of other people, the next day. I found it very unpleasant.

Alice and I, we'd met before, but we were able to kind of sit and chat on the set of Dark Shadows, and talk about maybe writing some songs together. We started doing that, and then one thing led to another and it became this Vampire project - because he was telling stories about all those days, which were fascinating.

In the Air Force, I had an old Wilcox Gay recorder, and I used to hear guitar runs on that recorder going (vocalizing) like the chords on "I Walk The Line." And I always wanted to write a love song using that theme, that tune.

Sam Phillips asked me to go write a love song, or maybe a bitter weeper. So I wrote a song called, "Cry Cry Cry," went back in and recorded that for the other side of the record.

When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, Ill write it.

That was my challenge as a composer. Like with anything, to keep yourself interested in doing what you do, you set yourself challenges. So I said, Okay, I'll try to write a hundred tunes in a year.

Only half the story is true. The rest is necessary.

I try to write the most embarrassing thing I can think of.

I do find that most fans are aware of my writing career and have known my real name for many years.

A friend of mine pointed out to me, "Why do you separate your writing and your music?" I got (writers) Rick Moody and Jonathan Ames to do the first one, and it just kind of gathered steam; then NPR picked it up. It is a nice way for me to marry both sides of my career, a move that's probably culminated in me dropping the name John Wesley Harding.

When I was writing this new bunch of songs, I was singing a lot lower, because they were more intimate in a way. I had to come up with a way to frame the music that was intimate.

Maybe I'll just write books. I'd like to make another movie, but I don't want to go back and [do] what they want you to do, to make it for a million dollars. I did that. I don't need a lot, but I need what I used to get, and they don't give you that anymore.

I have no interest in ever making a movie I didn't write. If they were going to take my house away, then I guess I might have to. But my agent knows not to even bother sending me the scripts.

I've been writing verses For 60 years...phew! And d'yer know why I did it? T'was especially for you

Good writing is good writing, but that doesn't mean you can't orchestrate it or tweak it.

I'd just like to see - in writing about baseball - more energy and better craft, minus statistical bludgeoning and invective.