Writing Quotes
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So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.
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When you're writing, in theory, everybody is serving you. When you're directing, you're serving everybody - in the guise of acting like everybody's serving you. But you're really serving the materials. You're serving the actors. You're in charge, but it's not free.
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I never got any training in how to write novels as an English major at Oberlin, but I got some great training for writing novels from anthropology and from Margaret Mead.
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I try not to think too much about my writing process - I tend to feel my way forward and find more insights that way.
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I never leave home without my writing notebook, and get a lot of writing done in transit. One great place to create is while riding the subways of New York City, where I live.
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My publishers find me really challenging, as a lot of the time, I don't even know what I'm going to be writing about until I sit down to do it.
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The freedom to share one's insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.
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Writing was not a childhood dream of mine. I do not recall longing to write as a student. I wasn't sure how to start.
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Take lots of time for yourself, discovering yourself-pursue not only a profession but other life passions, I always make time to rock climb or hike or write a few short stories. Also, find good people and surround yourself with them. Most importantly, always believe you will, unequivocally.
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Nothing mattered ... but writing books, and living the kind of life that made it possible to write them.
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Since childhood, I wrote a lot of fiction, a lot of stories, but I most loved writing essays.
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The easiest thing to do on earth is not write…But this is life on earth, you can't have everything.
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I'm never happier when writing than when I see gags taking shape - ideally, gags at my own expense. What I like is the shuttling back and forth, serious into comedy and vice-versa, ideally, both in the same sentence, or even simultaneously. The best jokes are always ideas in miniature.
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So many writers come to class with one question dominant in their mind, 'How do I make a living from this?' It's a fair enough question and one I always try to answer well- but it saddens me that it so often overshadows the more relevant questions of 'why am I writing' and 'what am I saying' and 'how do I keep it honest.
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It really made me nervous to write about it [Holocaust] and to approach it, because I was nervous about how to do it respectfully, and I was also thinking about how I could add something new to something that had already been so explored.
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A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness... The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration... a focusing of the attention in a special way.
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Comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write.
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The Public Theater requires one to be very public, and writing requires one to be very private.
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Writing fulfils an insatiable drive. Finishing the story satisfies my thirst. But I must keep drinking until the story quenches a buyer.
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Here is a simple recipe to begin with. Get up every morning with the set intention of writing and go to your desk and sit there for three hours, whether you accomplish anything or not. Before long you will find that you are writing madly, not waiting for inspiration.
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Everything I know, I write about. My only research is what I did.
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I'm just writing what I feel, and I really don't think I've done anything wrong that I need to hide. The biggest thing, and I don't even like to bring it up, is my children - you know, you've gotta protect them.
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Writing is thinking on paper.
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Writing for adults often means just increasing the swearing - but find an alternative to swearing and you've probably got a better line.
