Writing Quotes
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I realised that the only time I really enjoyed music was when I was in the studio writing. So even though it was a six album deal, they saw quite early on that I wasn't enjoying it as I should be. I didn't feel there was anything behind it.
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I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it.
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Every language reflects the prejudices of the society in which it evolved.
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When I was a kid, we used to play this thing called 'the writing game' with our father. My brother and I would play it - where first person writes a sentence, and the second person writes a sentence, and the third person writes a sentence, and so on until you get bored and have to go to bed.
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Good writing is good writing, but that doesn't mean you can't orchestrate it or tweak it.
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Charles Blow's memoir 'Fire Shut Up in My Bones' was a breathtaking piece of writing.
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I really, really like writing songs.
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Nothing so sharpens the thought process as writing down one's arguments. Weaknesses overlooked in oral discussion become painfully obvious on the written page.
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I came to a dead stop and began major revisions. Sometimes these entailed the shredding of all existing manuscript for a fresh start - an inefficient way to write a book, though I found it exciting.
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When you are writing something, you can’t anticipate how an audience is going to respond and the fact that people can associate with it is very satisfying.
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I sort of kept my hand in writing and went to work for the Sierra Club in '52, walked the plank there in '69, founded Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters after that.
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I'm so deeply interested in what it feels like to be other people that I get to operate under the illusion when I'm writing fiction that I'm not really revealing that much about myself. But, of course, I am, and I know that I am. And yet there's this sort of membrane that I get to work behind as I write my fiction, and I love it.
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My dirty little secret is I don't drive at all, though I have my license and I renew it every five years. I'm phobic. I keep worrying if I drive, I'll end up killing someone. I hoped that by writing about a car crash, I might understand and heal this phobia, but I didn't! I'm still phobic.
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Everyone who knew me as a child, they say they're not surprised that I became a writer because I wrote all the time. I don't remember writing, because I wouldn't have had the tools, but I think what they are saying is that I would pretend I was a writer.
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I could write a treatise on the sudden transformation of life into archaeology
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I think it's important to really press on with the song writing and just go with it. There's no code, there's no craft... it's just let yourself shine through your music. If it's meant to be loved and heard, it'll happen.
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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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I can't do anything other than writing. I'm not very able, generally. If I'd not been a writer, I would probably be a very unsuccessful political adviser to someone or have worked for a council.
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Directing is a more pragmatic experience, where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing.
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What's the trick to writing a good bad guy? Well, for me, it's always been the idea that you pit yourself against authority, you know? I think that's what it takes - and then you can write villainous characters.
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We've all got to earn a living. And writing songs is what I do. But when I've done a record, it's not that I think it's better or worse than anyone else's, but if I think that nobody else would have done it if I hadn't, well then that's ok.
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I wrote 'Zeuglodon' on a whim. I found myself writing the voice of an 11-year-old girl. I don't know why.
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I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer.
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When you're a songwriter and you click with someone, you tend to want to keep writing with that person.
