Ben Brantley Quotes

I write the occasional entry for the 'Times' Theatre blog, especially when I'm in London and seeing two shows a day, but I don't tweet. I don't want to have to express my opinion in 140 characters. That's like writing haiku. You need a certain amount of legroom to review a play properly.

Ben Brantley

• Writing
• Opinion
• Theatre

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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

• With the release of her fourth album, 'Red,' in 2012 and a handful of highly publicized romances, Taylor was criticized by the press and other entertainers for such sinful acts as dating people and writing songs about it, gaining a reputation as boy-crazy and love-ridden.

  

  Tavi Gevinson
  • People
  • Writing
  • Crazy

• Actions yield result by the ordinance of God as He wills.

  

  Ramana Maharshi
  • God
  • Result
  • Actions

• I taught English and history, so my education for that really helped prepare me for writing historical fiction.

  

  Candace Camp
  • Writing
  • History
  • Education

• Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

  

  Napoleon Bonaparte
  • Opinion
  • Public Opinion

• The problem with writing a monthly book is that you're going through your work like a man running for a bus, red-faced and out of breath. There isn't time for reflection or critical self-examination.

  

  J. Michael Straczynski
  • Time
  • Work
  • Writing

• I've had those people very interested in my writing. Since I think of myself as a composer, I feel really good. I've had lots of guys call me up. I've gotten two or three commissions to write things. I've written lots of movie scores.

  

  Ornette Coleman
  • People
  • Up
  • Good

• Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.

  

  Carlos Fuentes
  • Writing
  • Done
  • Nothing

• I am disillusioned enough to know that no man's opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine information to make him really know what he's talking about.

  

  H. P. Lovecraft
  • Opinion
  • Information
  • Talking

• We had a few non-fiction books at home, but my dad was of the opinion that fiction was a complete and utter waste of time because it wasn't real - so what was the point of reading it?

  

  Malorie Blackman
  • Time
  • Real
  • Home

• Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • Writing
  • Place
  • Criticism

• When you start writing about the stuff that is the central experience of your own life, you can talk about whatever you want, in whatever way you want.

  

  Salman Rushdie
  • Life
  • Writing
  • Experience

• 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
  • Experience
  • Book

• Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.

  

  Harlan Coben
  • Up
  • Writing
  • Book

• I would be pleased if someone would invent a pill to remove my impatience, moodiness, and occasional bursts of anger. But if they did, I wouldn't be able to write my novels or paint.

  

  Orhan Pamuk
  • Anger
  • Paint
  • Someone

• I wasn't one of those kids who grew up wanting to write or who read a particular book and thought: 'I want to do that!' I always told stories and wrote them down, but I never thought writing was a career path, even though, clearly, someone was writing the books and newspapers and magazines.

  

  Gayle Forman
  • Up
  • Writing
  • Book

• Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life.

  

  Irwin Shaw
  • Life
  • Writing
  • Yourself

• 'Float On' was a fine song, but I was still writing the lyrics on the last day we were working on it and deciding if it was something we wanted to put on the record.

  

  Sir Isaac Brock KB
  • Writing
  • Song
  • Day

• I fought NAFTA when it passed; it has been a big disaster for us, in my opinion. If we can renegotiate that, it would be wonderful.

  

  Collin Peterson
  • Opinion
  • Disaster
  • NAFTA

• I make two movies a year to take care of the butcher and the baker and the school fees. Then I try to write, but it's not that easy. Acting is what's easy.

  

  David Niven
  • School

• To practice magic is to be a quack; to know magic is to be a sage.

  

  Eliphas Levi
  • Practice
  • Magic
  • Sage

• I've been writing about James Fenimore Cooper. He was not a writer. Here was a man who was 30 years old and had never put anything more than his signature on paper.

  

  Leslie Fiedler
  • Writing

• I mean, the acting school I went to, we did have a social experience, but you know, when it's a bunch of actors, it's everyone self-consciously having a social experience rather than just having a social experience.

  

  Adam Scott
  • School
  • Experience

• I write the occasional entry for the 'Times' Theatre blog, especially when I'm in London and seeing two shows a day, but I don't tweet. I don't want to have to express my opinion in 140 characters. That's like writing haiku. You need a certain amount of legroom to review a play properly.

  

  Ben Brantley
  • Writing
  • Opinion
  • Theatre