Quotes about writing
writing fiction shapes
A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end. Chaim Potok
writing half six
I don't work on my Sabbath. I write five-and-a-half or six days a week.
writing mean thinking
I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it.
writing school home
I got expelled from high school, and then did my exams from home. I decided, through that experience, that I was going to expediate my plan and didn't go to university. Instead, I went to a community college and studied the theory and history of film with the idea that I wanted to write and direct. Charlie Hunnam
writing intuition connections
As I'm writing, I start to see connections, and themes I didn't see, and that sparks other things. So then I go back and rewrite things or alter them. It's a combination of intuition and a lot of finessing. It becomes a combination of the rational and the irrational. Charlie Kaufman
writing actors directors
I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes.
writing thinking years
When I'm writing a script, before I can write dialogue or anything, I have two or three hundred pages of notes, which takes me a year. So, it's not like "what happens next." I've got things that I'm thinking about but I don't settle on them. And if I try to write dialogue before then, I can't. It's just garbage.
writing decision force
Directing is a more pragmatic experience, where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing.
writing thinking space
I try when I'm writing to leave enough "space" for people to have their own interpretation, and not to direct it toward one conclusion. Then the audience would not be reacting, because they are being preached to or lectured at. I don't have that much to say that I think people should listen to me.
writing thinking talent
Seriously, I don't consider myself a writer. I don't think I have writing talent. But I will continue to do it.
writing opposites trying
I don't write genre stuff in any form. I'm not interested in it. I always try to do the opposite of that.
writing character preparation
There's a point I can get to where I start writing character and then through the dialogue, after all of this preparation, the thing starts to feel like it's a character developing through the dialogue. A lot of character traits do come from writing dialogue, but I have to be ready to do it.
writing character trying
So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.
writing thinking people
I actually think I'm probably more interested in structure than most people who write screenplays, because I think about it.
writing thinking keys
From my vantage point in writing a story, I can't and don't and have no interest in thinking about the level of sophistication of the audience. I can only think about what interests me, and maybe what I would want to see if I were watching the movie. To me, that's the key to writing something that's not pandering.
writing journey adaptation
Writing is a journey into the unknown.
writing thinking people
I don't have a style. I wouldn't say I have a style as a writer, either. I know people have said "This is what he does," but when I'm writing, I don't think about that. I don't think about a style.
writing character way
I choose to write characters from the inside because I feel like that's the way I'm gonna get the most honest version of them.
writing way knows
Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write.
writing confusion perspective
The conventional wisdom is - people say this all the time - you should only write something when you're far enough away from it that you can have a perspective. But that's not true. That's a story that you're telling. The truth of it is here, right now. It's the only truth that we ever know. And I'm interested in that truth and the confusion being part of the experience and sorting it your way through and figuring it out.
writing sublime critics
When a critic knows what she or he is looking at and writes revealingly about it, it's sublime. Charles Saatchi
writing want stones
The poem I want to write is impossible. A stone that floats. Charles Simic
writing touching despair
One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.
writing enjoy fourth
I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all. Beverly Cleary
writing yellow pads
I write in longhand on yellow legal pads.
writing successful keys
The key to writing successful YA is to keep the adults out of the story as much as possible.
writing want today
The audience today has heard every joke. They know every plot. They know where you're going before you even start. That's a tough audience to surprise, and a tough audience to write for. It's much more competitive now, because the audience is so much more - I want to say 'sophisticated.' Betty White
writing play laughing
So much of the humor on new sitcoms plays to the lowest common denominator. Wit isn't nearly given as much attention as slipping on a banana peel. So much of the writing is so coarse, so obvious that it doesn't provide a shock, never mind a laugh. What makes something funny is alluding to it without laying it out explicitly. You let the audiences fill in the gaps and that's where the laughs come.
writing thinking sick
When I hear a great new record, especially when it's by someone that I respect and admire, then a part of me is like, Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't I write that record? It makes you sick, but in a way it can be a great thing. It makes you want to go back to the lab and start writing again. Maybe it will inspire you to try a little harder. Beyonce Knowles
writing editing loyal
As a loyal believer in the Auteur Theory I first felt editing was but the logical consequence of the way in which one shoots. But, what I learned is that it is actually another writing. Bernardo Bertolucci
writing men humanity
The High Divide, a novel about a family in peril, is haunting and tense but leavened by considerable warmth and humanity. Lin Enger writes with durable grace about a man’s quest for redemption and the human capacity for forgiveness. Benjamin Percy
writing views empathy
Writing is an act of empathy. You are occupying and understanding a point of view that might be alien to your own--and work is often the keyhole through which you peer.
writing thinking boredom
I really think I write about everyday life. I don't think I'm quite as odd as others say I am. Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring. Edward Gorey