Writing Quotes
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I mean, if we're concerned genuinely with writing, I think we probably get on with our work. I think this is very true of English writers, but perhaps not so true of French writers, who seem to read each other passionately, extensively, and endlessly, and who then talk about it to each other - which is splendid.
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Writing is learning to say nothing, more cleverly every day.
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My life is ruled by four W's: my writing, my work, my wife, and my whisky. Not necessarily in that order.
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When you're writing a song, you have to know two things. You have to know who you are, and you have to think about other people.
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At first I had no skills in writing comedy. I didn't know what a joke was, but, as someone once told me, your emotions follow your intent. If you create the intention of starting a comedy act, slowly your mind starts adjusting and you arrive at a new emotional state.
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I like to think of myself at home in the armchair, writing, smoking and occasionally wandering down the shop.
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Literature has low enough standards. But we can avoid writing the worst literature if we make ourselves ask ourselves, every two or three sentences we write, 'Is that what I really think?'
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The fastest way to teach a child to read is to teach them to write.
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I'm more interested in moving toward writing stories - thinking about the graphic novel form, and just something more long-form. I did a lot of literary translation in college. Translation is an art. But for sure writing has always been a part of how I think through my ideas.
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To outsiders it probably seems like splitting hairs, but to me, Bright Eyes is a simply the collaboration between myself and Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. What you hear is definitely the sum of all our ideas and represents all three of us. But I still write the songs myself.
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The most extraordinary thing about writing is that when you've struck the right vein, tiredness goes. It must be an effort, thinking wrong.
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I used to be an architect, so I have a series I am working on with USA Network that I created and am co-writing.
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Writing a poem is making music with words and space.
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I feel that if you made your writing too contrived to meet the market, it wouldn't be any good.
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If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work.
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It's a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.
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Writing is a solitary occupation; we don't really have any colleagues.
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It is a lie to write in such way as to be rewarded by fame offered you by some snobbish quasi-literary groups in the intellectual gazettes.
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Why cast yourself over a cliff, deciding in your writings about things of which you are ignorant? Why do you not keep to what you have received from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church? You introduce novelties!
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One of the nice things about moving from acting to writing is that your work can be in the public eye without having to be in the public eye yourself. I guess that's not completely true. If you're lucky - and I have been - there are book tours and lectures. I don't have stage fright, and I enjoy meeting people, so that's easy and enjoyable, but it's not a constant, and it's not celebrity.
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One of the things that made me try writing novels was I could take time off to be with the kids. That's the practical side of what I love about the writing life.
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When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story.
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I never started writing because I wanted to write myself stuff. It was really more that I had these stories to tell, and I wanted to work with people that I respected and liked.
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I don't teach anymore, but I can still clearly see fifth period after lunch - that's a real tough time to teach. And I tried to imagine writing a story that would appeal to those kids - even when they're tired, even when they're bouncing off the walls.
