Writing Quotes
-
I'm a rewriter. That's the part I like best . . . once I have a pile of paper to work with, it's like having the pieces of a puzzle. I just have to put the pieces together to make a picture.
Judy Blume
-
What I do is give Ennio Morricone suggestions and describe to him my characters, and then, quite often, he'll possibly write five themes for one character. And five themes for another. And then I'll take one piece of one of them and put it with a piece of another one for that character or take another theme from another character and move it into this character.... And when I have my characters finally dressed, then he composes.
Sergio Leone
-
I find myself speaking through the other characters, putting ideas in their voices and heads. Writing almost becomes a splitting of myself into multiple personalities. But I don't write to make an argument on behalf of any of the characters, or to prove anything about a character. I think that's important that I be serving the story first and not my own point of view.
Danzy Senna
-
I didn't want the lyrics to be about specific things in my life, I wanted them to be about generalised experiences I'd had. So when I'm writing about relationships or somebody leaving you or something, a lot of lyrics are partly about failed relationships I'd had, but they were also about my Dad, and being abandoned as a kid.
Zachary Cole Smith
-
I've often heard academics disparage non-academic writing in terms that suggest it could be a negative in the tenure process, irrespective of the quality of academic work under review.
Daniel Drezner
-
I can sit and dissect for hours, and then write 50 songs about. I always find that inspiring.
Rachael Yamagata
-
I have no interest in writing confessions, in deliberately baring myself to my readers. I prefer to remain behind a screen.
Louis Begley
-
Plot, or evolution, is life responding to environment; and not only is this response always in terms of conflict, but the really great struggle, the epic struggle of creation, is the inner fight of the individual whereby the soul builds up character.
William Wallace Cook
-
I started writing stories when I was 9 or 10. I wrote my first screenplay-type document when I was 14.
Cary Fukunaga
-
The myriad of ways that a song can be interpreted is astounding to me, and it's part of the allure of writing.
Laura Pergolizzi
-
I think that sense of unreality inspired me to write the story within the book that [August] Brill tells himself, one of the stories he tells himself.
Paul Auster
-
Those situations were just taking over my entire life. It was fun to write in a way, because it helped me take a really bad situation and a really sad situation and make beautiful songs out of them. When I got half of the song written it was like, "Oh, this is great." It was like the one thing that was making me happy again.
Nicole Atkins
-
It's hard to see a film one time and really "get it," and write fully and intelligently about it. That's a review. That's not film criticism. And there's so many expectations involved, too. You're going in to see the latest Martin Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick film, you really have high hopes, and you can't help but find that it's not exactly what you had in your head going in. Until you can watch it again, you can't accept the work for what it intends to be. It takes at least a second viewing.
Richard Linklater
-
I think if you listen to our records, they come at different points in your life. When people say to me that Stars records have themes, I think what they mean is we write songs - or try to write songs - that are timeless. We try to write songs that catch you at the right time in your life, and that you can hold on to. We write kitchen sink songs. If you're doing the dishes or you're driving to your mom's funeral, or if you're getting over having done MDMA and you feel sad, you can listen to Stars because we're not going to demand of you that you be cool.
Torquil Campbell
Broken Social Scene
-
There is the first satisfaction of arranging it on a bit of paper; after many, many false tries, false moves, finally you have the sentence you recognize as the one you are looking for.
Vladimir Nabokov
-
Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!
Wislawa Szymborska
-
Do not slip into writing for the mind and the mind alone. In other words, do not play merely upon our ability to reason. And do not focus only on visuals. Write for the whole person.
N.D. Wilson
-
There were times when depression, anxiety, whatever, would keep me from writing. I still get depressed and anxious, but I just don't let it stop me. I've just learned to move it to one side if I want to work.
David St. John
