Stephen McCauley Quotes
The experience of writing under a pseudonym was tremendously liberating; I could write what I wanted.
Quotes to Explore
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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.
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Normally, most writers don't say, 'I'm going into a mild hypnotic trance.' Typically, they don't know how they do it. Most people, when they have a good experience writing, they're well placed in that state, which is also sometimes called a 'flow state.' If you don't have trouble, you don't have to think about it.
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I studied philosophy, religious studies, and English. My training was writing four full-length novels and hiring an editor to tear them apart. I had enough money to do that, and then rewriting and rewriting and rewriting.
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Judgment comes from experience - and experience comes from bad judgment.
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Whether you want to entertain or to provoke, to break hearts or reassure them, what you bring to your writing must consist of your longings and disappointments.
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It had always been a dream of mine to come to New York to work. Coming to New York and looking for work is one thing, but coming to New York and already having a job and feeling like you are already part of the city has been an amazing experience for me.
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Imagination is a very potent thing, and in the uneducated often usurps the place of genuine experience.
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I didn't have a desk to write 'Red Queen' on, so I got a nice writing desk.
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When they come to Europe, they are confronted by still closed borders. Thus, the concept of open borders is a very selective concept, one that is not taken seriously at all in the experience of non-Europeans.
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That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.
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I like to think that I'm one of the few people in public life who write their own material. I write every word. And I really enjoy writing - especially my political commentary.
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The mind when it has an old experience will add that data into its current experience, and it keeps coming up with wrong answers.
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It's so different when you change your hair color, you're treated so differently. It's a very funny experience. It's fun - I love changing up my hair.
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Whatever it is you want to do, take a job in that field. You will learn by experience and, slow and steady, you'll get it done!
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I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything.
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All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.
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When I begin writing, I have no idea what my novels are ultimately going to be about. I don't have a plot. I never consider a theme. I don't make notes or outlines.
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Nature is full of infinite causes which were never set forth in experience.
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I gave up writing blurbs because you make one friend and 200 enemies.
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His eyes measured the little chamber. How two people could survive in so small a space was as difficult to grasp as the conventions in contract bridge. Perhaps there was some simple key that would solve the problem, and he would have the subject of another book.
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I like to be right. I try not to miss the big ideas, forget the little ones, and try to get them right. End of job description.
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Her own hair was a glory of copper fire that morning, shining like a whisky still, long and loose in gentle flames down her back.
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My hair has been so wrecked over the years by various things.
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The experience of writing under a pseudonym was tremendously liberating; I could write what I wanted.
