Writing Quotes
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I write just knowing that I enjoy writing. But if I have to write, it seems like nothing comes. But when I go there for my own pleasure, the Lord might just give me loads of stuff all at once.
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I never, ever talk about writing to anyone at all.
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I did not think that I was angry, but clearly anger was reflected in my writing. I did not think that I had been affected emotionally, but it was clear from my writing that I was still very emotional about the trial some six months after it ended.
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One of the things that put me off writing for a while was that piece of advice everybody gives new writers: 'Write what you know.' Nobody would ever want to read about my boring life! But I do know a lot of things about different societies' cultures and mythologies. The way people were and are.
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I was writing and I have three kids. I was occupying my time with them but it was difficult.
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Instead of announcing what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so.
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No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling. (20 December 1939)
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Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy.
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You write a book and you finish the book. That's your job done, right? You win the Booker and you have a whole new job. You have to be the thing, right? So instead of writing the story, you somehow are the story. And that I found that sort of terrible.
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Of course I knew that writing was terrifically hard work and that there was no secret code, as in a video game, that would unlock Tolstoy-mode, enabling me to crank out canon-worthy novellas before lunch.
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As soon as I started writing the first batch, I had a vision. I saw me on stage playing a certain type of music. I want to take these blues melodies over aggressive guitars. I heard the sound I wanted to make. I knew what I wanted to do. It wasn't ever there before.
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Writing was always an aspiration, but I'd kept it a secret even from myself.
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I was always determined that one way or another I would force a book on the world, even if I had to resort to writing one about a tabby cat who solves mysteries.
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Younger women tend to be busier, wearing more layers and more make-up. I don't know if it's because older women are more confident, or just that we don't care any more. But that pared-down approach is the same with the sentences I write; I take out adjectives and adverbs and keep the description to a minimum.
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You won't make a living writing until you learn to write when you don't want to.
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I definitely have a preference for writing anti-heroes and bad guys, especially when they have motivations that the average 'good' person can understand and get behind.
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I always have to be thinking about who's going to be singing this song, what the context is. I don't sit around just writing in a vacuum, ever.
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I'm not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.
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Writing and performing are to me what water and movement are to sharks.
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The writing partnership is a good collaboration for the same reason the marriage works, which is two people who can stand alone choosing to stand together.
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Somebody's always getting me to come lecture to their writing class, and I don't talk about writing at all, I talk about the business of making a living at this racket.
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I'm a family-based person, even though we didn't exactly have a very happy family. I was never in any doubt that this was a centre of writing.
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The biggest hurdle to writing Fargo Rock City was that I couldn't afford a home computer - I had to get a new job so I could buy a computer. It could all change though. In five years, I could be back at some daily newspaper, which wouldn't be so bad.
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I love doing different things where, for a little while, I can focus on standup then sketch writing, then performing, then directing a video. That, to me, is stimulating.
