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

• I've always written songs that were confessional, acoustic, wordy - my writing style matches my personality. The music always has to match the mouth it comes out of.

  

  Camila Cabello Fifth Harmony
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Style

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• When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that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

• When it comes to writing musicals, you write the best piece you can. Then, its destiny is in the hands of the actors and the director.

  

  David Bryan Bon Jovi
  • Writing
  • Destiny

• To be honest, I chose romance because writing a book seemed so dauntingly long. I looked around for something short, discovered Harlequin romances, and decided to read a few to see if I could do it.

  

  Lori Wilde
  • Long
  • Writing
  • Book

• Dysfunctional co-dependent relationships always appeal to me. I don't know exactly how it started. I start writing sketches of characters and little scene-lets, and then it builds.

  

  Elizabeth Meriwether
  • Writing

• I can always tell when a filmmaker doesn't care about his or her characters; they just care about setting them up to kill them off.

  

  Drew Goddard
  • Up

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

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • Writing
  • Discipline
  • Back