Writing Quotes
-
I use a computer, but before I begin each new book I keep a notebook. I write down everything that comes to mind during that period before I actually begin. It might take months or weeks. That notebook is my security blanket so that I never have to face a blank screen (or blank page). But I print out often and my best ideas usually come with a pencil in my hand.
Judy Blume
-
Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers.
Jimmy Breslin
-
Medicine has an immediate impact, the ability to do good. Writing is such a solitary activity.
Uzodinma Iweala
-
Back in my 20s, when I wrote 'A Place of Greater Safety,' the French Revolution novel, I thought, 'I'll always have to write historical novels because I can't do plots.'' But in the six years of writing that novel, I actually learned to write, to invent things.
Hilary Mantel
-
I want to stay in the writing long enough to become a falling star of the up-and-coming genre, then a has-been known only by collectors, and finally a rediscovered artist who is finally recognized as a creative giant misunderstood in his own time. Then forgotten again. But if I get removed from the list, it'll probably be because there are just too many damn good writers out there, and any poll of some assortment of editors is going to come up with an equally valid, equally varied list.
Daryl Gregory
-
My characters, I find them as I'm writing. It's quite incredible how fully realized they are in my mind, how many details I know about each of them.
Paul Auster
-
Most writing doesn’t take place on the page; it takes place in your head.
Susan Orlean
-
I didn't feel the need for anonymous affection, for people in the dark applauding. To me, it would be like writing a novel and then getting up every night and reading your novel. Everything I did is on the record and, if you want to hear it, just listen to the record.
Tom Lehrer
-
We write about ourselves because we know about ourselves.
Layne Thomas Staley
Alice in Chains
-
I think you can't write with anger. I think it always has to be with a wink. There always has to be an element of hope in what you write. Otherwise you're just getting mad and it's not going to be fun for anybody.
Mark Russell
-
When I need to work up my nerve to write a tough column, I try to think of myself as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit.
Maureen Dowd
-
I read the reviews sometimes, but I don't let it really affect the next album because, for me, when I approach an album, it's usually coming to me pretty naturally. It's not like I set out, like, "Okay, I'm going to write an album this month." It's more like I'm just always writing songs and eventually I start to realize that a group of songs sort of fits together, and I go from there in putting together the album and themes and artwork and things like that.
Chelsea Wolfe