Mike Rutherford Quotes

Seventy percent of what I write, I throw out. I can write very easily, but writing original things is the hard bit.

Mike Rutherford Genesis

• Writing

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• When I was around eight, I learned how to touch-type at school, and I received a computer as a present. I started writing plays, and for many years I thought I would be a playwright.

  

  Gabrielle Zevin
  • Writing
  • School
  • Present

• I've been writing a lot of poetry recently. It helps me think and work things out.

  

  Ed Westwick
  • Work
  • Writing
  • Poetry

• Once you research an idea, you begin to develop a perspective. Writing about anything in public, often in real time, has helped fashion my views.

  

  Barry Ritholtz
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Real

• Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.

  

  E. L. Doctorow
  • Writing
  • Learn
  • Start

• Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.

  

  Carlos Fuentes
  • Writing
  • Done
  • Nothing

• I think you have to learn for yourself how to write. I'm slightly mystified by creative writing courses - God love them - because I can't understand how you can explain a process that I find so baffling.

  

  Kate Atkinson
  • God
  • Writing
  • Love

• Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • Writing
  • Place
  • Criticism

• Write every day; never give up; it's supposed to be difficult; try to find some pleasure and reward in the act of writing, because you can't look for praise from editors, readers, or critics. In other words, tips that are much easier to give than to take.

  

  J. R. Moehringer
  • Up
  • Writing
  • Words

• When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that there would be fans of those stories.

  

  Paolo Bacigalupi
  • World
  • Writing
  • Girl

• Be aware of who in your life is actually interested in hearing you discuss your writing, and who's just asking to be polite. Listening to writers talk about their work is often excruciatingly dull.

  

  Hanya Yanagihara
  • Life
  • Work
  • Writing

• Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.

  

  Dan Brown
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Journey

• I mean, the wonderful thing about writing a book is that you're getting a finished product at the end of the day. You're communicating directly with the reader.

  

  Gary Ross
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Day

• 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.

  

  Randy Owen
  • Time
  • Music
  • Writing

• Writing can be a very solitary profession, and when deadlines are looming, it's tempting to glue myself to my desk, but I try to make sure I get out a few times a month with friends just so I don't forget what it means to be social.

  

  Becca Fitzpatrick
  • Writing
  • Friends
  • Myself

• However far fiction writers stray from their own lives and experiences - and I stray pretty far from mine - I think, ultimately, that we may be writing what we need to write in some way, albeit unconsciously.

  

  Wally Lamb
  • Writing
  • May
  • Think

• I love writing but hate starting. The page is awfully white, and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time, but those days are over, giftless. I'm not your agent, and I'm not your mommy; I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like.

  

  Aaron Sorkin
  • People
  • Time
  • Writing

• I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction.

  

  Irvine Welsh
  • Writing
  • Like
  • More

• Writing blurbs for books means you have to read the book, and it cuts into the business of bookselling. So every time I get a blurb from a bookseller, I try to write a thank you note.

  

  Gabrielle Zevin
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Business

• Interviewing Rei Kawakubo in Tokyo and John Galliano in Paris, both for 'Pop' magazine, were huge for me, not just in learning about fashion and writing but about how little desire I had to be a critic/reporter/journalist/commentator so much as a kind of travel diarist.

  

  Tavi Gevinson
  • Writing
  • Desire
  • Learning

• You get so caught up in what you're writing - action sequences tend to do that more than anything else because you're living it, and feeling for your characters.

  

  Iain Banks
  • Up
  • Writing
  • Feeling

• People know what they love … Even those whose lives are floundering. If they're directionless, it's not because they lack knowledge of what they want. It's because they lack the courage to acknowledge that they want it.

  

  Andrew Bernstein
  • People
  • Knowledge
  • Courage

• Children are amazing, and while I go to places like Princeton and Harvard and Yale, and of course I teach at Columbia, NYU, and that's nice and I love students, but the most fun of all are the real little ones, the young ones.

  

  David Dinkins
  • Children
  • Real
  • Fun

• When I was two and a half or three, my mom got a call from someone asking if wanted to go on an audition. I ended up getting the job; it was a commercial for Hasbro. It was my first audition and first commercial. I just had to smile and laugh and dance around.

  

  Megan Charpentier
  • Up
  • Job
  • Mom

• Seventy percent of what I write, I throw out. I can write very easily, but writing original things is the hard bit.

  

  Mike Rutherford Genesis
  • Writing