Quotes about writ
writing giving decision
At some point, you have to sit down and face the page alone. At some point, the final decisions need to be yours. At some point, you have to give yourself deadlines and stick to them.
writing school play
When Indian musicians play a raga it's very restrictive. But, in a way these restraints are essential to liberate yourself through them, if that makes sense. I'm very much of this school of rhythm, it's the direction I'm drawn in when I'm writing and improvising. John McLaughlin
writing mature enough
Music actually meant something when I started doing it. Too bad I wasn't mature enough to write anything that meant anything. John Mellencamp
writing thinking people
One of the best things I’ve read about that inexplicably, but endlessly, fascinating group of people, the so-called Serious Collectors of 78s. Petrusich burrows into not just their personalities but the hunger that unites and drives their obsessions. She writes elegantly, and makes you think, and most important manages to hang onto her skepticism in the midst of her own collecting quest. John Jeremiah Sullivan
writing thinking empathy
I think empathy is a guy who punches you in the face at a bus station, and you’re somehow able to look at that him and know enough about what situation he was in to know that he had to do that and not to hit back. That’s empathy, and nothing ever happens in writing that has that kind of moral heroism about it.
writing creative plot
Plot is a map and I begin with it. It is what made me admire the novels of the 19th century; that the stories are foreshadowed. TheyÕre going someplace. John Irving
writing letdowns seems
Nearly everything seems a letdown after a writer has finished writing something.
writing self stupidity
You bet I write disaster fiction. We have compiled a disastrous record on this planet, a record of stupidity and absurdity and self-abuse and self-aggrandizement and self-deception and pompousness and self-righteousness and cruelty and indifference beyond what any other species has demonstrated the capacity for, which is the capacity for all the above.
writing wrestling hard-work
Writing is hard. I learned how to work hard from wrestling, not English courses.
writing stories want
When I finally write the first sentence, I want to know everything that happens, so that I am not inventing the story as I write it - rather, I am remembering a story that has already happened.
writing firsts written
I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.
writing dark matter
Whatever I write, no matter how gray or dark the subject matter, it's still going to be a comic novel.
writing reason should
There's no reason you should write any novel quickly.
writing next novel
I never know when I finish the novel I am writing which will be the next novel out of the station.
writing directors novel
When I feel like being a director, I write a novel.
writing matter said
It doesn't really matter who said it - it's so obviously true. Before you can write anything, you have to notice something.
writing stories victim
Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.
writing way minutes
The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything.
writing novel
I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.
writing crafts architecture
The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of.
writing giving cooking
If you are careful,' Garp wrote, 'if you use good ingredients, and you don't take any shortcuts, then you can usually cook something very good. Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day; what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love. Cooking, therefore, can keep a person who tries hard sane.
writing history prejudice
The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections, and even prejudices of a given generation. John Hope Franklin
writing opportunity offering
I have a website because it's an interesting tool, very - and quite unexpectedly - useful for my work. It's become an archive and a fairly complete on-line portfolio, as well as offering an opportunity to write a little. John Howe
writing able bigs
I thought of God as being able to talk big and write *very* small. John Hersey
writing type satisfied
To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again and once more, and over and over.
writing opportunity giving
Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.
writing singers performing
It's a whole package, singer/songwriter. I like writing but I like performing just as much. John Hiatt
writing creative missing
You know, I began my life as a creative person writing true things for magazines and telling some very honest, straightforward personal essaying for This American Life, but until someone forces you, with a deadline, to really observe your life - unless you're motivated to do it yourself - there's so many stories that you miss. John Hodgman
writing mind connections
When you're sitting down and you're blocked and you just start writing and something in your mind just clicks, you start seeing connections and so on, you really do feel like you're channeling something else.
writing long mind
For a long time, I would write without music, because I thought it was distracting until I appreciated that it actually unlocks a certain unconscious productivity vault in my mind.
writing superhero borges
My biggest superhero of writing is Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine fabulist. He's an amazingly perceptive writer, but also willing to make a joke.
writing mean years
More people have more access to more readers for less money than ever before in history. It means a lot of dross; but it means a lot of very talented people can find and nurture a readership in ways that were not possible twenty years ago. From a creative perspective, that is all that writing is about.
writing years twenties
You cannot write to resonate twenty or thirty or forty years from now. You only can write for that very day, but whatever happens is all gravy. John Guare