Writing Quotes
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It's usually a big kind of vent of frustration or anger or sadness that puts me in the right frame of mind to write. It's such a cliche to say that artists write when they're down, but it's true for me. It's a relief to get out what's eating away at my heart or my soul or my head.
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I write as straight as I can, just as I walk as straight as I can, because that is the best way to get there.
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Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.
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I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything.
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While writing 'City Boy,' I relied mainly on my own memories. In particular, I was able to describe the effect of gay liberation on an individual life (mine) as events paralleled my own growing self-acceptance; in this case, the political truly was the personal.
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I had never read Upton Sinclair. I didn't read 'The Jungle' in high school or anything like that. But it's pretty terrific writing.
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There are very few solid family films. A lot of the writing is awful.
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People spend a lifetime thinking about how they would really like to live. I asked my friends and no one seems to know very clearly. To me it's very clear now. I wish my life could have been like the years when I was writing 'Love in the Time of Cholera.'
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If I were a first rate writer, I wouldn't mind a bit. What does depress me is this: it is so desperately hard and so obsessive and so lonely to write that, in return for all this work, one would like a little self satisfaction. And that is never going to come, for the simple reason that I do not deserve it. I cannot be a good enough writer. You see? I call it grim. But the future looks awfully clear to me.
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If you're a writer, the insight of other writers - if there's some kind of Holy Grail message on how to deal with writer's block or how to deal with any problem that can come up - whether you're writing about yourself or a group of people, I find that very interesting.
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I'm constantly coming up with new strategies for getting to the mental place where writing is so joyous and playful that I almost can't help putting the words down.
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I've always known that I was a gifted person. ... I've always felt like I would be punished, severely, if I didn't continue to make use of that gift. It's very important that you don't let the muscle get flabby. It's really hard, as an old human being, to press as much weight as you pressed when you were a kid.
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The business of writing a novel is a long, meandering road into the self, into the imagination. And it's a road the writer travels alone.
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After I left the Pumpkins, I went home and just sat around. I have a studio in my basement, and I found myself writing all these songs, just taking advantage of the relaxed situation. I wrote about 30 songs in about 30 days.
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I started writing because I wasn't getting things as an actor.
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Good writing will bring you to places you don't even expect sometimes.
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Don't you like to write letters? I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something.
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I sometimes think it ironic for an ex-seaman, longshoreman, truck driver, policeman, bus driver, etc... to find success writing children's novels.
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The best way to tell people about climate change is through non-fiction. There's a vast literature of outstanding writing on the subject.
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I can't go on Gawker. I actually think the writing is really funny, but there is a chance that somebody is undercutting me.
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I always think of writing as a physical thing. I'm not trying to generalize, it just happens to be that way with me.
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I really looked up to Tina Fey as a writer, and because I did have a background in writing, she is someone whose career I really did admire.
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I think, when I'm 73, I'm going to be getting softer, writing Hallmark cards, losing my teeth.
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I have to go on writing because I wouldn't be able to go on without writing. It is the only function that works for me, and without that function, I would die.
