Writing Quotes
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There's a rule of writing: if everything is funny, nothing is funny; if everything is sad, nothing is sad. You want that contrast.
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I want less and less control with music. Just playing music without any idea of composition or writing.
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In writing 'The Satanic Verses,' I think I was writing for the first time from the whole of myself. The English part, the Indian part. The part of me that loves London, and the part that longs for Bombay. And at my typewriter, alone, I could indulge this.
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I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.
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The listeners who buy books after a reading multiply that reading; the author who realizes that he or she may be writing on a blank page but is at least not speaking to a blank wall may be encouraged by the experience, and write more.
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Be aware of who in your life is actually interested in hearing you discuss your writing, and who's just asking to be polite. Listening to writers talk about their work is often excruciatingly dull.
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You can get stale writing with each other for a while.
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I think it actually started in my late thirties. I started changing psychologically, and it was difficult to translate that into my writing.
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We're always on the search for a novel or a source or an existing screenplay, or writing something ourselves that turns us on. But because films cost a lot of money to make and a huge amount of effort to get the people to rally, you have to really like it; you can't just semi-like it. Getting to 'really like' is the part that takes the minute.
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I hate thinking about it, teaching about it, and writing about it. But the plain truth is that hell is real and real people go there for eternity.
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You know, I can't imagine 9 to 5 writing. That takes some stamina.
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You used to get people writing in to the Liverpool Echo saying, ‘Who is this Martian walking round town?’ I used to get battered. Going out for lunch was like running the gauntlet.
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If you're making music for all the right reasons, people are going to be receptive to that and appreciate it the same way you did when your were writing it.
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Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.
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I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.
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Even when I am writing I usually take a break around lunchtime and go for a little walk to clear out my head.
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One of the side-effects of having your work appear in a public forum such as this is that people often email me asking for advice on how to break into writing, presumably figuring that if a drooling gum-brain like me can scrape a living witlessly pawing at a keyboard, there's hope for anyone.
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If your writing collides with the conventional wisdom, there's going to be some kind of friction.
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When I'm writing songs, my favourite thing to do is to try and rabbit-trail and go places I've never gone to before. Just like exploring a new terrain or a new country or something.
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There's nothing mathematical to my writing. It's a feeling.
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Writing a book, you can only get stopped by yourself.
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When you write what you know, you stay in control. One of the first things I encourage my writing students to do is to lose control - say what they want to say, break structure.
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When I write a novel, every word is mine. I welcome suggestions from my editor, but in the end, I make all the final decisions.
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A writer who isn't writing is asking for trouble.
