Writing Quotes
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Writing a book is such a full-time job. If you're away for a few days, you have to start again.
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I don't think I've ever read an old book through from start to finish. Not after more than six months after writing it, that is.
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If you're writing songs by yourself, who's going to tell you if it's good or not? But if you're writing songs with somebody else, you get that immediate feedback.
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it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply.
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I loathe the trivialization of poetry that happens in creative writing classes. Teachers set exercises to stimulate subject matter: Write a poem about an imaginary landscape with real people in it. Write about a place your parents lived in before you were born. We have enough terrible poetry around without encouraging more of it.
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I'm a Macintosh nut. I got my PowerBook, so if I'm not writing jokes, I'm working on that.
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Youths write me and tell me that their band will go nowhere because of all the bad bands in the world. I tell them there has always been awful music and that no great band ever wasted any time complaining, they just got it done. Their ropey ranting is just a way to get out of the hard work of making music that will do some lasting damage.
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Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates.
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I had to find stories no one else was writing, so I got away from the quarterback and the coach. I'm still looking for stories no one else has written.
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Writing screenplays makes me a better musician because it clears my head. After writing a movie, I go running back to music as fast as I can.
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I remember the absolute joy I used to get out of writing. The purity of imagining something and then putting it down on paper - it was such a pleasure. I read whatever I could get my hands on, from 'Great Expectations' to 'The Thorn Birds.'
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Movements are not radical. Movements are the American way. A small group of abolitionists writing and speaking eventually led to the end of slavery. A few stirred-up women brought about women's voting. The Populist movement, the Progressive movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the women's movement - the examples go on and on of 'little people' getting together and telling the truth about their lives. They made our government act.
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Teenagers watch and listen to all kinds of things. It is the nature of being a teenager to seek out intense stuff. Stuff about death and sex and love and fear. Teenagers are the bravest, most curious, most philosophical, most open-minded readers there are, which is why so many less-than-young adults like writing for them.
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This report has been difficult to write because it involves something that doesn't officially exist. It is well known that ever since the first flying saucer was reported in June 1947 the Air Force has officially said that there is no proof that such a thing as an interplanetary spaceship exists. But what is not well known is that this conclusion is far from being unanimous among the military and their scientific advisors because of the one word, proof; so the UFO investigations continue.
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For me, speaking to anyone - on a stage, in an elevator - I am looking for impact and connection. The same goes for writing.
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But with writers, there's nothing wrong with melancholy. It's an important color in writing.
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I find the most difficult part of writing is to get it down initially because what you have written is usually so terrible that it's disheartening; you don't want to go on. That's what I think is hard - the discouragement that comes from seeing what you have done.
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I started writing songs, I guess, when I was about 13 or 14, but I didn't know if they were good enough yet or anything.
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I have a great many opinions about writing, but I'm afraid that all of them are unprintable.
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When I started writing, I just wanted to do something different and creative. I first thought neo-soul was a good pathway for me, so I tried that out but realized I didn't want to be placed in that box.
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If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.
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Writing is a voice that calls us from dreams, that peeks out of the corner of our eyes when we think no one is looking, the longing that breaks our hearts even when we think we should be happiest, and to which we cannot give a name.
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Memory implies that there is some static time and place you can go back to, whereas if you relive it by trying to put yourself back in that context, its more nuanced, less black and white. More traumatic, but also more exciting. When I knew I had to write about things that would be painful, I put off doing it for ages. But then eventually the fear of not doing it becomes greater than the fear of doing it.
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I'd like to know what I could do if I really had the time to spend on writing a book, with no columns or shows to do at the same time.
