Ed McBain Quotes
I wanted to be an artist. I was studying art. I wanted to be a great painter. When I went into the Navy, there wasn't much to draw at sea. So I began writing, and I began reading a lot.
Quotes to Explore
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We're more interested in someone writing a really great answer that's going to be read by thousands or tens of thousands of people over the next few years as it stays on Quora and as it gets distributed on the Internet.
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My own writing has perhaps more of an American flavor than a British one, but that's because the stories I've so far written have needed it. 'Empire State,' 'Seven Wonders' and 'The Age Atomic' are all very place-centric, where the setting itself is almost a character. But there is a universality to story that isn't just limited to science fiction.
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I don't talk about Amy Winehouse as a 'singer.' She's a pioneer. I listened to her endlessly when I started writing.
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My understanding of films was just as much as any young girl who watches Bollywood films. I had no idea about the whole process of filmmaking, about dialogue writing, scripts, screenplay etc. I had probably gone to two or three film shoots in my childhood.
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Writing an essay is like a school assignment: I have my topic, I organize my thoughts, and I write it. I have complete control over what I'm doing. Writing a novel is like setting out on a journey without knowing who or what I'll encounter, how long it's going to take, or where I'm going to end up.
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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.'
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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.
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I was always more interested in my books and my writing than going out. It's OK to say I'm a nerd. That's me.
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I have to take it as a given that I have got a certain ability to do something. I can be an artist, which is take something and transform it into another thing. I can just see something, and I can see my painting.
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Just as I could tell you about my first Andre Norton novel or my first L'Engle or my first Asimov, I could write a paragraph about how each of these writers influenced me, my writing, and my thoughts, and do to this day.
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Writing is agony. I hate it.
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I have some great stories and I will get around to writing a book.
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I was a visual artist primarily and a writer, even from a very young age.
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I get paid all day, every day, which is almost too much for a sensitive artist.
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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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Things I used to get in trouble for writing at 'SNL,' suddenly other people like it.
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But when I was a little kid, I was always writing stories and illustrating little books that I would create.
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I came from a family of incredible storytellers, but I didn't start writing children's books until I was 41 years old.
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The people who are writing online and the people in my genre of creative non-fiction exert a great deal more freedom that journalists are allowed to exert in their day-to-day work.
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Just about the worst thing an artist can do is to try and be a nice person.
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Everything I do tries to do the same thing, which is to express things that are hard to express, hidden things.
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If a thing seems to you worth working for at all, if it appears to you of moment enough to challenge any effort, then put into what you do all the enthusiasm of which you are capable, regardless of criticism.
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Confidence is sexy.
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I wanted to be an artist. I was studying art. I wanted to be a great painter. When I went into the Navy, there wasn't much to draw at sea. So I began writing, and I began reading a lot.
