Writing Quotes
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When you're writing something new, writing something that's your own, basically you have nothing else to do except either invent a trick, use someone else's trick, or have no trick and get a bad performance.
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Writing is harder than you think. You'll be rejected often. If you do it for money, you'll quit. Love it or don't do it.
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I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have by reading novels.
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Stories do not change the world. I've learned that. But perhaps in some secret, subtle way... I mean it's not the world I want to change.
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Use the creative process - singing, writing, art, dance, whatever - to get to know yourself better.
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When I started, I was pretty sure I was going to be writing some goofy little wizard novels that might make me some part-time money and would hopefully lead to something I could do better.
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It's often women who are writing leading roles for women. Most of the stuff that comes my way is not actually about women. I'm just asked to be a supporting player in a story about a man, and I, frankly, was not interested in doing that.
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For me, practice isn't doing scales but doing things like writing, jamming with other people, or playing gigs.
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I started writing for the theatre because I hated it.
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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.
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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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Smart people often talk trash about happiness and worse than trash about books on happiness, and they have been doing so for centuries - just as long as other people have been pursuing happiness and writing books about it.
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Nature never writes a blind hand.
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Writing for yourself is like exposing your diary. It can be a little embarrassing at times, but if it helps somebody get through the day just by hearing a song, it's well worth it.
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I write a lot of material you've never heard that live inside my sadness. You'll hear a song that lasts six to seven minutes of just beautiful sadness. But I can't just go out on the stage to ask five thousand people to be sad with me for seven straight minutes.
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If we want to write, it makes sense to read—and to read like a writer. If we wanted to grow roses, we would want to visit rose gardens and try to see them the way that a rose gardener would.
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I am pretty interested in trying to write and produce an animated film at some point, but that's a job that takes several years, minimum, to get an animated movie going.
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I've always tried to write the kind of book I most loved to read: character-centered adventure.
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Each book gets harder, each book gets harder and harder. I always feel like crying when I have to write.
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I am always writing. It is not always good, but if I am writing, I am usually happy.
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Writing [is] a form of prayer.
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The reason business writing is horrible is that people are afraid. Afraid to say what they mean, because they might be criticized for it. Afraid to be misunderstood, to be accused of saying what they didn't mean, because they might be criticized for it.
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I didn't start writing songs, honestly, until I started making my album. I was always doing poetry, but I never thought I could write songs. I discouraged myself and thought it was so hard. But starting this process and learning just what it is to be a songwriter and performer taught me that you don't have to feel discouraged about anything.
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The pen will never be able to move fast enough to write down every word discovered in the space of memory. Some things have been lost forever, other things will perhaps be remembered again, and still other things have been lost and found and lost again. There is no way to be sure of any this.
