Writing Quotes
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I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged...I had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out.
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When we don't have all the details about our characters, we have to make it up to fill in all the details. So, for me, writing and acting go hand in hand.
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I think visually... so, even when I'm writing a play, I'm envisioning it.
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Torture yourself about your failures. And then get back to work.
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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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At readings, audience members sometimes ask if I keep writing past the two hours if I'm on a roll, but I don't. I figure that if I'm on a roll, it's partially because I know I'm about to stop.
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In America, everyone writes but no one reads. Everyone's writing all day long - sending emails, tweets, text messages; they all think they're James Cameron's Avatar, performing in some video game for which they make up the script.
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I was an athlete, so I have kind of an athletic sensibility towards writing. I can work for many long hours without fatiguing.
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I was writing from the age of 10, and I was never really into going to discos and dances and stuff. I never told anyone at school that I did that because I feared it would alienate me even more.
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I don't mean it to sound egomaniacal, but in a way, for me, it was very useful to imagine that I was the only one who was taking pen in hand. I'd always been told that it was impossible to be published, so I was writing only for myself.
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Writing a book is a tremendous experience. It pays off intellectually. It clarifies your thinking. It builds credibility. It is a living engine of marketing and idea spreading, working every day to deliver your message with authority. You should write one.
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My time in New York really clarified things for me. I thought, 'What could I do with my life that would give it meaning?' And writing was that for me.
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Kids think you just sit down and start writing. I always tell them you never do that.
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It's one of the strangest attributes of this profession that when we writers get exhausted writing one thing, we relax by writing another.
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When I first started making music, it was learning other people's songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.
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He = Duchamp himself, writing in the third person CHOSE IT. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object.
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Most of 'All Hail West Texas' was written during orientation at a new job I had. I had basically worked this job before, I knew this stuff, so I was writing lyrics in the margins of all the Xeroxed material.
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The Internet makes writing about restaurants easier and more interesting in quite a few ways, one of the main ones being to do with the mundane business of checking what's on the menu.
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I'm the wife Spike Lee deserves. A white woman, which he says he would never be with, so let's get someone really white. I am Spike Lee's wife from Hell. I'm white and weird and I won't pay enough attention to him. If he does any more of those angry interviews, I'm going to write him and see if he wants the wife he deserves.
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The thing about writing jobs is you can't really turn them down. When there's an opportunity, and it's something I want to do, I would do it.
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I'm quite glad I never learned to play the guitar, because I think I'd write songs that were more classically structured. As it is, I've had to create my own way of writing, which isn't typical. Everything's a big crescendo.
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What about WRITING it first and rationalizing it afterwards?
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We all have our muses. My grandmother and my mother are the people I write for. I'll never have to worry about who buys my work, or who likes it, and who doesn't. The people who I want to be proud of me already are.
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The problem with dragons is that everyone uses them. All the time. When that happens, they become commonplace. A lot of people think you can just throw them into a story and suddenly whatever you're writing is 28% cooler. But that doesn't work. All that does is make dragons into some boring cliche.
