Rachel Cusk Quotes

Writing is a discipline: it's almost all about holding back.

Rachel Cusk

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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 don't really take a step back too often to see what's going on.

  

  Gavin DeGraw
  • See
  • Back
  • Step

• All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.

  

  J. M. Coetzee
  • Writing
  • Storytelling

• Writing 'William Shakespeare's Star Wars' was a fun exercise in mixing just the right amount of the Bard with just the right amount of everyone's favorite galaxy far, far away.

  

  Ian Doescher
  • Writing
  • Fun
  • Star

• Well, as an artist, I think that Elvis's generosity to me he always talked very highly about me, he always spoke very highly about my work and singing and my writing.

  

  Jackie DeShannon
  • Work
  • Writing
  • Singing

• One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

  

  Harrison Birtwistle
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Take

• Black people were very angry with me for writing the book. A lot of people didn't believe me, or didn't want to believe me, and that used to really bother me. It was a very painful and difficult time.

  

  LaToya Jackson
  • People
  • Time
  • Believe

• When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that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

• There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate - not to the artist, but to the public, blinding them to all but harming the artist not at all.

  

  Oscar Wilde
  • Art
  • Law
  • Foolish

• Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life.

  

  Irwin Shaw
  • Life
  • Writing
  • Yourself

• People say, 'How does having kids change your writing? Do you see the world through their eyes?' No - you just become a faster songwriter... In the old days, you'd be like, 'Oh I'm gonna work on this song for a few days.'

  

  Eddie Vedder Pearl Jam
  • People
  • World
  • Work

• 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.

  

  Talib Kweli Black Star
  • Good
  • Writing
  • Lyrics

• I'm always up for going back to the stage.

  

  Taye Diggs
  • Up
  • Stage
  • Back

• I love writing two narratives! I think concurrent storylines are my favorite way to write a book.

  

  Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • Writing
  • Love
  • Book

• Special-interest magazines are dangerous places for writers to start out in because the writing quickly falls into a routine and people are likely to find themselves artistically exhausted when they want to work on something of their own.

  

  Irwin Shaw
  • People
  • Work
  • Writing

• I love being a mom. But there's a certain kind of tedium to your life when your kid is young. Writing allows you to wander when your kid is napping in a crib ten feet away. So that's the great joy of writing fiction for me.

  

  Gayle Forman
  • Life
  • Kind
  • Mom

• I'm so damn boring. I like reading and writing and making coffee. And walking. Barry Jenkins likes long walks.

  

  Barry Jenkins
  • Long
  • Writing
  • Reading

• 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

• Back in the 1960s, the number of deaths each year from unintentional poisoning was 15 times greater than it is today.

  

  Hal Stratton
  • Today
  • Year
  • Back

• You know, I'm still deciding what I'm going to be when I grow up.

  

  Deborra-Lee Furness
  • Up

• Sweeping, confident articles on the future seem to me, intellectually, the most disreputable of all forms of public utterance.

  

  Kenneth Clark
  • Future

• In America, when you bring an idea to market, you usually have several months before competition pops up, allowing you to capture significant market share. In China, you can have hundreds of competitors within the first hours of going live. Ideas are not important in China - execution is.

  

  Ma Huateng
  • Up
  • Important
  • Live

• Lucy looked and saw that Aslan had just breathed on the feet of the stone giant. It's all right!" shouted Aslan joyously. "Once The feet are put right, all the rest of him will follow.

  

  C. S. Lewis
  • Rest

• Writing is a discipline: it's almost all about holding back.

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • Writing
  • Discipline
  • Back