Quotes about writing
writing shooting want
Some directors expect you to do everything; write, be producer, psychiatrist. Some just want you to die in a tragic accident during the shooting so they can get the insurance. John Malkovich
writing two everyday
Our everyday language has become encumbered, Germanic, artificial, bureaucratic, inorganic. It may not be exaggerated to say that by now American writers face but two alternatives: write English, or write gobbledygook. John Lukacs
writing people competition
If you ever want to know why I'm not on a record label, look at 'The X Factor!' Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions. John Lydon
writing self laziness
Periods of inactivity, I don't know such things. I'm consistently writing. My life is busy. It always is. There are hardly any moments for self-indulgent laziness.
writing imperfection difficult
So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with. John Locke
writing ideas people
I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last. Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about. John Legend
writing names together
Paul (McCartney) and I made a deal when we were 15. There was never a legal deal between us, just a deal we made when we decided to write together that we put both our names on it, no matter what. John Lennon
writing kids artist
All kids draw and write poetry and everything, and some of us last until we're about eighteen, but most drop off at about twelve when some guy comes up and says, 'You're no good.' That's all we get told all our lives. 'You haven't got the ability. You're a cobbler.' It happened to all of us, but if somebody had told me all my life, 'Yeah, you're a great artist,' I would have been a more secure person.
writing thinking years
We've learned over the years that if we wanted we could write anything that just felt good or sounded good and it didn't necessarily have to have any particular meaning to us. As odd as it seemed to us, reviewers would take it upon themselves to interject their own meanings on our lyrics. Sometimes we sit and read other people's interpretations of our lyrics and think, 'Hey, that's pretty good.' If we liked it, we would keep our mouths shut and just accept the credit as if it was what we meant all along.
writing mountain impossible
There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain. John le Carre
writing hands literature
I happen to write by hand. I don't even type.
writing thinking hands
Without a pen in my hand I can't think.
writing principles stories
It's a principle of mine to come into the story as late as possible, and to tell it as fast as you can.
writing spy desperate
I was the British spy who had come out of the woodwork and told it how it really was, and anything I said to the contrary only enforced the myth. And since I was writing for a public hooked on Bond and desperate for the antidote, the myth stuck.
writing work-out imagination
Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.
writing two pages
When it's going well [writing] goes terribly fast. It isn't at all surprising to write a chapter in a day, which for me is about twenty-two pages. When it's going badly, it isn't really going badly; it's just the beginning.
writing dust pie
Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.
writing cat stories
The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.
writing today old-movie
In old movies, the cinematography is a thousand times better than anything today. Writing, a thousand times better. John Kricfalusi
writing thinking
Writing helped me understand what I was thinking about. John Baldessari
writing years knowing
A curious thing about written literature: It is about four thousand years old, but we have no way of knowing whether four thousand years constitutes senility or the maiden blush of youth. John Barth
writing kind produce
Those rituals of getting ready to write produce a kind of trance state.
writing plot
A plot begins when somebody has something to hide. John Banville
writing light manhattan
I live in Dublin, God knows why. There are greatly more congenial places I could have settled in - Italy, France, Manhattan - but I like the climate here, and Irish light seems to be essential for me and for my writing.
writing careers giving
The effect of prizes on one's career - if that is what to call it - is considerable, since they give one more clout with publishers and more notoriety among journalists. The effect on one's writing, however, is nil - otherwise, one would be in deep trouble.
writing civilization perfect
Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one’s living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing. I couldn’t ask for anything better. It’s as near to godliness as I can get.
writing self order
In order really to write one has to sink deep into the self and become lost there.
writing ideas singing
I wanted to do Playboy to get across the same ideas I'm singing and writing about these days. It's all about proving that a woman can defy stereotypes. Jody Watley
writing emotional emotional-things
No one writes about the emotional things you go through. Jimmy Chamberlin
writing class rude
I didn't plan to be the rude middle-class comedian. You write a certain type of joke that you find funny, and mine happen to be often rude. Yes, it's juvenile, but that's me. Jimmy Carr
writing people add
I like to write a joke without any fat on it.The shorter the better. I cater for people with ADD, basically.
writing numbers sea
[Writing] is edit, edit, edit. It's almost like getting a boat ready to go to sea. You've still got a countless number of things left to fix, but you've just got to go, "O.K., everybody get on the boat. We're going, ready or not." Jimmy Buffett
writing way firsts
That to me is the way any good romantic would look at his life: Live it first, then write it down before you go.