Writing Quotes
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I went straight from the Marine Corps to the MFA. The way that you would express things among Marines is somewhat different than the way you're supposed to express things in a creative-writing workshop.
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I've been writing poetry seriously since about 2008, 2009.
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I am trying to make, before I get through, a picture of the whole world--or as much of it as I have seen. Boiling it down always, rather than spreading it out too thin. (On Writing.)
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One of the things about writing fiction is that you create people that you feel, more or less, as though you know.
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I practice really hard, every day. I started that about 13 or 14 years ago; it's a discipline now. But the writing is a whole other thing. It'll come from handling a guitar, mostly; thinking up little guitar riffs. I was born and raised a rock 'n' roll guy, and that's the rock 'n' roll ethic, at least through my experience.
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The goal is not writing. The goal is being a human being writing.
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Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies.
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I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.
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All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.
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I've been very blessed to make a living in stuff I love and am totally passionate about, music and writing. So I'm eager to see what the day will bring, how I will feed that passion.
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I started writing in the '90s, so I was free to just have an eccentric career and not conform to some idea of what a black writer has to do. I didn't have the burden of representation.
Colson Whitehead -
Rian Johnson's 'Looper' is inventive, entertaining, and thought-provoking in every way a movie can be. It is in fact the kind of movie that reminds us why we watch them and make them, a beautifully told story that deserves to be not only remembered, but acknowledged for its writing.
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When I began to cover songs for YouTube, they all tended to be in the super pop-genre.. as in, smash-hit songs. My writing process was heavily influenced by this - I went from a more heavy punk rock style to straight up sugary-sweet pop.
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People think my work is therapeutic. I don't see it that way. It's not like I'm saving money from a weekly therapy visit by writing down my life.
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I've come to see that these politicians that release books - no way are they actually writing those books. Not when they are working fulltime, too. There's no way. That's their name on the book, but it's not their work. I'm sure of that. There's no way.
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Either you've got the bug, or you haven't. There are many things I'd rather be doing than writing a book.
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I have two little children. I didn't want to be missing their childhood while I was away, busy writing about children.
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In my view the plangent artificiality of a lot of creative work results from the fact that the people who write novels, direct films and put on plays tend to read too many novels, watch too many films and go to too many plays.
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Never put off writing until you are better at it.
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My writing process is editing. It's taking all the funny thoughts you've had over the last 12 months, and editing out everything that's shit. You're left with an hour and a quarter of funny stuff.
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Writing and telling jokes is my favorite thing to do, and I want to be able to do that forever.
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When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness—I am nothing.
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A writer is like a bag lady going through life with a sack and a pointed stick collecting stuff.
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My life's purpose is to write poetry - but behind the poetry must be the vision of a fresh revelation for men.
