Jay-Z (Shawn Corey Carter) Quotes

I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.

Jay-Z

• Writing
• Words
• Running
• Bags
• Notebook

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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 more I go on in this career of making albums, writing songs and playing music, the more I think of each album as a movie. I really wanted to make a film, but making a film is much more expensive than making a record.

  

  J. D. Souther
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Movie

• I guess I went into journalism to save the world. I always felt through writing that I wanted to rotate the world slightly.

  

  Carl Honore
  • World
  • Writing
  • Journalism

• I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

  

  Rachel Johnson
  • Writing
  • Done
  • Thing

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

  

  E. L. Doctorow
  • Writing
  • Learn
  • Start

• I started submitting stories for publication when I was about 15, but it was many years before I sold anything. I don't make my living writing science fiction, so in that sense, I'm still not a pro.

  

  Ted Chiang
  • Writing
  • Science
  • Years

• I don't talk about Amy Winehouse as a 'singer.' She's a pioneer. I listened to her endlessly when I started writing.

  

  Laura Mvula
  • Writing
  • Talk
  • Singer

• I worked initially in very low-budget independent films that I often wrote. My early work was all written by myself, and then I adapted 'Tsotsi,' so I was used to the writing process being, in a way, integral to my directing. I felt it really prepared me.

  

  Gavin Hood
  • Work
  • Writing
  • Myself

• I don't have specific music for when I'm writing. I'm usually listening to the same playlist or 'artist' before I arrive at the computer as when I'm walking somewhere after leaving the computer.

  

  Tao Lin
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Listening

• To get ready to climb Everest, I did a lot of hill running with a daypack on and a lot of underwater swimming. I would swim a couple of lengths underwater and then a couple above. It gets your body going with limited oxygen.

  

  Bear Grylls
  • Running
  • Couple
  • Swimming

• Arendt did have a certain snobbishness, though in some of her writing she expressed more democratic attitudes.

  

  Barbara Sukowa
  • Writing
  • Democratic
  • Attitudes

• For me, writing is such an escape, and I felt very lucky to have this to run away to.

  

  Rachel Joyce
  • Writing
  • Me
  • Lucky

• However far fiction writers stray from their own lives and experiences - and I stray pretty far from mine - I think, ultimately, that we may be writing what we need to write in some way, albeit unconsciously.

  

  Wally Lamb
  • Writing
  • May
  • Think

• Writing is a form of licensed madness.

  

  Mal Peet
  • Writing
  • Madness
  • Licensed

• The nice thing about writing at home is that it's almost as though I'm doing it already. I get out of bed thinking of my work, and I don't have to go anywhere to do it.

  

  Patrick deWitt
  • Work
  • Thinking
  • Writing

• They've got this house style which is writer driven. I heard of one person who sent his script in, and Karen Berger said there weren't enough words in it. Put some more in.

  

  Eddie Campbell
  • House
  • Words
  • Style

• Writing blurbs for books means you have to read the book, and it cuts into the business of bookselling. So every time I get a blurb from a bookseller, I try to write a thank you note.

  

  Gabrielle Zevin
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Business

• I would wake up really early and go into the hotel bathroom, put a towel over the toilet, and put my laptop there. I'd put my headphones on and just write. And so now when I do writing sessions, and I am stuck on a part, or I can't figure out a chorus, I'm just like, 'Give me a second,' and I'll go to that bathroom.

  

  Camila Cabello Fifth Harmony
  • Writing
  • Part
  • Hotel

• When I'm feeling frustrated with a story, I have faith that it's going to come. Also, when I first started writing, I wanted to write the stories that were not in my childhood, to represent people who hadn't historically been represented in literature.

  

  Jacqueline Woodson
  • People
  • Writing
  • Feeling

• I don't want boys to use their pencils for improper writing.

  

  John Burns
  • Writing

• I've had students at Yale: my main task with them in drama school was not helping them with their writing but showing them how valuable they were. Because they're ready to give it up and go into teaching or television.

  

  John Guare
  • Up
  • Writing
  • School

• I work out, I go to pilates, I walk and I eat everything I can get my hands on.

  

  Sally Kellerman
  • Work
  • Hands
  • Walk

• I confess to wincing every so often at a poorly chosen word, a mangled sentence, an expression of emotion that seems indulgent or overly practiced. I have the urge to cut the book by fifty pages or so, possessed as I am with a keener appreciation for brevity.

  

  Barack Obama
  • Book
  • Cutting
  • Appreciation

• I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.

  

  Jay-Z
  • Writing
  • Words
  • Running