Susan Orlean Quotes

Most writing doesn’t take place on the page; it takes place in your head.

Susan Orlean

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• Head
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Quotes to Explore

• Yeah I'm still writing. I've got about 14 tracks now. But we've been on tour so we haven't had time to get back to a rehearsal place.

  

  Ville Valo HIM
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Now

• I guess I went into journalism to save the world. I always felt through writing that I wanted to rotate the world slightly.

  

  Carl Honore
  • World
  • Writing
  • Journalism

• I've got plenty of quirks. I go to an office early in the morning. Early in the morning is really good writing time. I take anywhere between six to eight showers a day. I'm not exaggerating. I'm not a germaphobe: it's all about a fresh start.

  

  Aaron Sorkin
  • Time
  • Good
  • Writing

• Any man who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.

  

  Samuel Goldwyn
  • Man
  • Head
  • Medical

• 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.

  

  Vince Gill
  • Up
  • Good
  • Writing

• I am just doing photo shoots. It's not something that extraordinary. I'm not a great artist, I'm not writing books, I'm not a painter, and people in the streets ask me for a picture or a note, and I say, 'Why?'

  

  Carine Roitfeld
  • People
  • Great
  • Writing

• 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.'

  

  Patricia MacLachlan
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Experience

• Very often, writing a song is a process that happens to me rather than one that I instigate. I feel a song coming on and, like a sneeze; I wait for it until it comes.

  

  Kat Edmonson
  • Writing
  • Song
  • Process

• 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

• The ego being shattered is not what frightens me - that can be useful for writing - but the ego being inflated is sort of like it dying of gout.

  

  Garth Risk Hallberg
  • Writing
  • Dying
  • Ego

• I wrote small stories here and there, then bigger ones. Some were even written for money. I signed up for a writing class and snuck my first assignment on a yellow legal pad in a partner's office while he read through my memo.

  

  Rachel Sklar
  • Up
  • Writing
  • Money

• 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 am writing to all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way... Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God.

  

  Ignatius of Antioch
  • God
  • Writing
  • Food

• There aren't a lot of 'Aha!' moments in writing.

  

  Damon Galgut
  • Writing
  • Moments
  • Lot

• Storytelling is storytelling. Good stories need compelling characters and interesting conflicts. That's the bottom line no matter what medium you're writing for.

  

  D. J. MacHale
  • Good
  • Writing
  • Interesting

• Medicine was certainly intended to be a career. I wanted to become a psychiatrist, an adolescent ambition which, of course, is fulfilled by many psychiatrists. The doctor/psychiatrist figures in my writing are alter egos of a kind, what I would have been had I not become a writer - a personal fantasy that I've fed into my fiction.

  

  J. G. Ballard
  • Writing
  • Career
  • Ambition

• When you write what you know, you stay in control. One of the first things I encourage my writing students to do is to lose control - say what they want to say, break structure.

  

  Natalie Goldberg
  • Writing
  • Want
  • Control

• I started writing poetry in high school because I wanted desperately to write, but somehow, writing stories didn't appeal to me, and I loved the flow and the feel and sense of poetry, especially that of what one might call formal verse.

  

  L. E. Modesitt
  • Writing
  • School
  • High

• I play and I've played in heavy bands, but when I write for myself, I don't particularly feel like writing huge rock riffs. It just doesn't work for me and my voice.

  

  James Iha The Smashing Pumpkins
  • Work
  • Writing
  • Rock

• I've never conceptualized much of what I write about. Maybe, once I'm onto something, I'll conceptualize a finished record. I want the songs to tie together and make sense together. I'm not like, "Oh, I want to explore this idea." That's just not how the creative process works for me. It's more like something strikes me, or finds me, and then I wrestle with it after that. I don't sit back in my armchair, like, "What kind of philosophy can I explore today?"

  

  Conor Oberst Bright Eyes
  • Writing
  • Together
  • Song

• I constantly think I'll be found out any second. Some of the crazy stuff that goes through your head. Once you've moved on from the scene, that's it: it's going in the telly and there's nowt you can do about it! It's really scary.

  

  Faye Marsay
  • Think
  • You
  • Crazy

• I am not a chef. I am not even a trained or professional cook. My qualification is as an eater.

  

  Nigella Lawson
  • Chef
  • Qualification
  • Eater

• There were no direct ego confrontations, we all just took it to the stage and everybody brought their A- game.

  

  Jerry Horton Papa Roach
  • Stage
  • Ego
  • Confrontations

• Most writing doesn’t take place on the page; it takes place in your head.

  

  Susan Orlean
  • Writing
  • Head
  • Page