Andrew Motion Quotes

But I can't and don't ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems.

Andrew Motion

• Writing
• Hats
• Bells
• Throwing
• Confetti

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Quotes to Explore

• When I was around eight, I learned how to touch-type at school, and I received a computer as a present. I started writing plays, and for many years I thought I would be a playwright.

  

  Gabrielle Zevin
  • Writing
  • School
  • Present

• The story was such that I couldn't make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning. I could have, but I didn't want to. So, it isn't the most graceful way of writing a story. This new story is, I think, is pretty good stuff. I'm pleased with it anyway.

  

  Jack Vance
  • Good
  • Writing
  • Pretty

• Once you research an idea, you begin to develop a perspective. Writing about anything in public, often in real time, has helped fashion my views.

  

  Barry Ritholtz
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Real

• Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.

  

  E. L. Doctorow
  • Writing
  • Learn
  • Start

• I like the performing. And interviews, even. And the stuff that's not sitting in a room by yourself with empty paper. But I never loved writing, to tell you the truth.

  

  Randy Newman
  • Writing
  • Truth
  • Yourself

• 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.

  

  Adam D'Angelo
  • People
  • Great
  • Writing

• There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.

  

  Sam Shepard
  • Writing
  • Way
  • Acting

• Writing books is a nice retreat. There's nothing quite like diving into a book for a few hours. That is a big time vacation.

  

  Padgett Powell
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Book

• The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.

  

  Natalie Goldberg
  • Writing
  • You
  • Quality

• I love writing songs.

  

  Sade Adu
  • Writing
  • Love
  • Songs

• 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.

  

  Madison Smartt Bell
  • People
  • Good
  • Writing

• I like writing flawed women, and being one, it's something I feel I can write with some veracity and authority.

  

  Callie Khouri
  • Writing
  • Women
  • Feel

• I love writing. Given a choice, after directing for all these years, and if given an army of talented directors, I would not direct at all.

  

  Vikram Rohit Shetty
  • Writing
  • Love
  • Army

• 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

• My highest point was the first thing I won, a short story competition in a women's magazine in the Eighties. It was the first time I'd had my writing validated, and the first thing I'd ever shown anyone else.

  

  Kate Atkinson
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Women

• 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

• I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.

  

  Talib Kweli Black Star
  • Good
  • Writing
  • Lyrics

• If I weren't a performer, I would be still be writing and songwriting. Plus, I also really want to get into producing.

  

  Manika
  • Writing
  • Want
  • Songwriting

• 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.

  

  Pamela Dean
  • Writing
  • Day
  • Thoughts

• I know that one of the things that I really did to push myself was to write more formal poems, so I could feel like I was more of a master of language than I had been before. That was challenging and gratifying in so many ways. Then with these new poems, I've gone back to free verse, because it would be easy to paint myself into a corner with form. I saw myself becoming more opaque with the formal poems than I wanted to be. It took me a long time to work back into free verse again. That was a challenge in itself. You're always having to push yourself.

  

  Barbara Hambly
  • Long
  • Writing
  • Challenges

• Time to a writer is like play dough in the hands of a toddler.

  

  Barry Lane
  • Play
  • Writer
  • Toddler

• I did keep detailed journals from about fifth grade on, and every so often as I was growing up, I would re-read them and reflect on the previous years of my life.

  

  Raina Telgemeier
  • Life
  • Up
  • Growing

• But I can't and don't ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems.

  

  Andrew Motion
  • Writing
  • Hats
  • Bells