Writing Quotes
-
If you're writing about angry people, you use the language of anger. If you're writing about desperate people, you use the language of desperation.
-
I like to erase lines between categories. Why separate cookbook writing from writing, healthy from good tasting? I want to be open to possibilities.
-
I remember my first agent telling me - because they found me as an actor, but I was probably more interested in writing and maybe directing - they were like, 'Well, you can't do both things.' And I was like, 'I'm gonna show you.'
-
Writing about where I was from and the people I knew was not something that would have occurred to me early on, because like so many Southerners of that period - the Sixties - I rejected those things when I went north.
-
When I wrote 'Dear Fatty,' I realised that sitting and writing alone is an absolute joy.
-
I love writing songs. One of the toughest things is structure; it just works when you use verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. And as soon as you become aware of that formula, you start to have a bad conscience when you write with that particular structure.
-
Music has always been my constant, my salvation. It's cliche to write that, but it's true.
-
Reading while I'm writing ideally inspires my competitive side. When I read great writers, I want to be a better writer.
-
I've figured out in the course of my life that the one thing I'm good at doing is writing books, and it would be crazy to trade that in for something else.
-
I had this contract to write songs for people when I was about 18. I don't think any of them were taken up; I was a complete failure at it! But I've kept doing it, writing little songs for myself.
-
I've found is that by doing stand-up, I've actually learned how to combat depression. I don't have clinical, but I've definitely had my bouts with it. I just figured out that it's a choice. You're in control of your brain. When your brain is sending you bad information or bad thoughts, you can decide to go to the gym, or write a new joke - or if you're on the road, go to a ball game... something that's going to get the blood going. Or you can let those thoughts take you right down the rabbit hole.
-
The real power of comics is writing as you draw.
-
I'm writing all the time, really. It's become a little bit of a problem when I go home. Sometimes I should really go out and hang out with my friends, but what happens is I get really inspired and then just go and mess around on the computer.
-
In a chemistry class there was a guy sitting in front of me doing what looked like a jigsaw puzzle or some really weird kind of thing. He told me he was writing a computer program.
-
I don't have any writing routine. Sometimes I go to my local coffee shop and I write there for some hours. Apart from that, I am traveling most of the time. I write in airports, trains, hotel rooms... I can write anywhere.
-
I had a lot of really terrible advice early in my writing career, and I cheesed off people without even knowing it, all the while thinking I was implementing good advice. Well, what can you do about it? Next.
-
It is to be remembered that all art is magical in origin - music, sculpture, writing, painting - and by magical I mean intended to produce very definite results. Paintings were originally formulae to make what is painted happen. Art is not an end in itself, any more than Einstein's matter-into-energy formulae is an end in itself. Like all formulae, art was originally FUNCTIONAL, intended to make things happen, the way an atom bomb happens from Einstein's formulae.
-
After I won the Pulitzer, there was this sense of, 'OK, that's enough for you. Now go away.' What I wanted was to keep writing, keep working. But no one would produce anything of mine they didn't think would be as big as 'night, Mother.'
-
I listen to a lot of different stuff, from Mozart to Johnny Dowd to Monster Magnet. I don't listen to music while I'm writing a draft, but I do listen to it when I'm revising.
-
I learned that comedy is born out of strong characters. I won't begin writing a character until I have a clear take on them.
-
Whenever there's an interview with me, I might read it, but I don't read the comments because they're so hateful sometimes. When someone writes something nasty, I just think, "If that's your contribution to my day, I really don't need your impoliteness." I'm lucky that people are very cool with me and I get a lot of love. I appreciate that.
-
I actually started writing it because I was inspired by my own personal growth.
-
I love reading; it's a great way to avoid writing.
-
I once had an editor advise me, as I was revising one of my early novels, to add more characters. I played around with the idea. As soon as I'd decided a few fresh faces and give them something to do, I realized that what my editor had really asked for was more plot. Ding. More characters equals more action.
