Ed McBain Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
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I read my books to writing workshops and friends, and I'm often focussed just on keeping them entertained. I never think about marketing at all.
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Peter Sellers was just a brilliant actor, and also comedic.
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I like writing about biology, not doing it.
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I've been writing fiction probably since I was about 6 years old, so it's something that is second nature to me now. I just sit down and start writing. I don't sit down and start writing and it comes out perfectly - it's a process.
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I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.
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I'm no actor, and I've got 64 pictures to prove it.
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Musical types tend to combine the burden of the author with the burden of the actor.
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Every actor wants more offers, but I get enough and I do like to be busy.
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The fault lines are shifting from the boundaries of nations into the web of our societies and the streets of our cities. And, terrorism and extremism are a global force that are larger than their changing names, groups, territories and targets.
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I did not go to any creative writing workshop; I did not major in literature. If I can write, anyone can write. All it needs is imagination.
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All art is propaganda, and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda.
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I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.
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With writing, I love doing it, but there's that love-hate relationship: You're not having a good run, you've hit a wall; it's frustrating.
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People say I'm not good at writing about men. My dad left when I was 16. Give me a break. I'm doing the best I can.
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I never read detective novels. I started out in graduate school writing a more serious book. Right around that time I read 'The Day of the Jackal' and 'The Exorcist'. I hadn't read a lot of commercial fiction, and I liked them.
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I have no desire to write fiction. I did what I did, and it's done. There's more to life than writing and publishing fiction. There is another way entirely, amazed as I am to discover it at this late date.
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I always try and make people feel that they are strong enough to say something - anything, to anyone - even if it's a stranger or they're just writing a tweet if they're in danger.
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Romanticizing the act of writing or any other art is not very helpful to the artist or the art. It's much better if one simply does.
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Trying to make your own sound is hard. When I was producing for other artists, I could just produce and write songs as a normal songwriter, and almost make them generic. The artists themselves, whoever is singing that song, can put their own twist on it. When it came to my own material, I had to really dig deep, because I was just writing generic stuff. It sounded like everybody else, like Justin Timberlake, like Usher. I never wanted to sound like someone, that's when you know it's not going to work.
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Now a slave is not 'held' by any legal contract, obligation, duty, or authority, which the laws will enforce. He is 'held' only by brute force. One person beats another until the latter will obey him, work for him, if he require it, or do nothing if he require it.
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And because of President Obama, more women than ever are serving in the Cabinet and on the Supreme Court.
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Changing writing styles is like an actor taking on a different part.
