Ed McBain Quotes
Quotes to Explore
-
All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
-
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.
-
Peter Sellers was just a brilliant actor, and also comedic.
-
I like writing about biology, not doing it.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I'm no actor, and I've got 64 pictures to prove it.
-
Musical types tend to combine the burden of the author with the burden of the actor.
-
Every actor wants more offers, but I get enough and I do like to be busy.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I've done stuff to pay my dues and that's what actors are supposed to do, because I was a really bad actor when I was 18 or 20.
-
I started writing short stories. I tried writing horror, mystery, science fiction. I joined a little critique group here in town and ran my stories past them. After about three years, I tackled my first novel, Subterranean. It took me 11 months to write.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
One must not be mean with the affections; what is spent of the fund is renewed in the spending itself.
-
What we now have is the freedom which attends decadence, or the decadence which attends freedom.
-
I'm horrible at concepts. My life is random and my inspiration is random. But it's all written in a very specific time frame that says a lot about my life at the time.
Nanna Øland Fabricius -
We need to have a paradigm shift in our consciousness. If we don't get our act together and come in commonality and understanding with the organisms that sustain us today, not only will we destroy those organisms, but we will destroy ourselves.
-
Do I think every culture will embrace location technology? Yes.
-
Changing writing styles is like an actor taking on a different part.
