Jeff Lindsay Quotes
Every writer must find a way of writing that tells the reader: This is me and no one else. The Voice can be idiosyncratic, but it cannot be obscure. It is a blend of style and content and intent and rhythm and pure personality.
Quotes to Explore
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'Yellow Moon' was a poem. My wife at the time, Joel - she's dead now - it was our 25th anniversary. She had the chance to go on a cruise with her sister. And I'm home with the kids and looking up, and I saw the big moon, and I just started writing.
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I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.
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All writing is that structure of revelation. There's something you want to find out. If you know everything up front in the beginning, you really don't need to read further if there's nothing else to find out.
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The short hair fits my personality more. I think maybe, with long hair, it was a role - I was playing dress-up a bit.
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The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.
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I can sit and analyze everything and beat myself up and say you don't quite sing as good as you used to, you're writing better songs maybe than you used to, but to me it's just the journey.
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When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
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I have to write what I can write, and writing the text of a picture book is like walking a tightrope, if you ramble off... As my friend Julius Lester says, 'A picture book is the essence of an experience.'
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When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that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.
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I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.
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I love writing two narratives! I think concurrent storylines are my favorite way to write a book.
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When I first start writing a song, I usually write the title first, then the song, and I'll sing the song in my head and think of a visual of the song. If I can't think of a visual behind the song, I'll throw the song away.
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Whatever's going on with me at the time of writing is going to find its way into the piece. If that doesn't happen, then what the hell am I doing? So if I'm writing 'Inglourious Basterds,' and I'm in love with a girl and we break up, that's going to find its way into the piece.
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They've got this house style which is writer driven. I heard of one person who sent his script in, and Karen Berger said there weren't enough words in it. Put some more in.
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The accidents of my life have given me the ability to make stories in which different parts of the world are brought together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes both - usually both. The difficulty in these stories is that if you write about everywhere you can end up writing about nowhere.
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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.
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The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It's that simple.
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Everyone is going to die.
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I'm good at melody - I'll write the top-line melody and ideal words I want to go with it. But I'm not that good at writing lyrics. I bounce those back and forth with songwriters or someone who can sing.
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Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine.
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Blake did what we needed him to do for us tonight. My nerves were a little shabby at the beginning of the game, but it's good to know that we have a guy that will go out and battle for us. He's going to give us a chance to win every time he takes the mound.
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The invention of writing will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom.
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I called Nic Pizzolatto and he said, "No, no. You're in it the whole way through." That was fun to shoot [in The Lobster]. I had a few scenes in that show that were some of my favorite all-time scenes to be in.
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Every writer must find a way of writing that tells the reader: This is me and no one else. The Voice can be idiosyncratic, but it cannot be obscure. It is a blend of style and content and intent and rhythm and pure personality.
