Write Quotes

Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.

Every time an adult is going to write something for a teenager and you don't have, physically, a person who is that, you are always going to be a little off.

My only fantasy about writing was that in my old days, after directing many masterpieces, I would write my memoirs.

I notice that students, particularly for gay students, it's too easy to write about my last trick or something. It's not very interesting to the reader.

I write fiction and I'm told it's autobiography, I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so since I'm so dim and they're so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn't.

I write from my stomach.

Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.

People have said to me, You can't write songs. You can't play an instrument. But I've got 10 gold records.

I had said before that I'd never write an autobiography because I've been around, and there's a lot that I've seen and heard that stays with me. That's just mine. I didn't want to do a kiss-and-tell, as some of my peers have.

Strangely, some songs you really don't want to write.

I see and write things first as an artist, second as a woman, and third as a New Yorker. All three have built-in perspectives that aren't neutral.

I don't want to write any more for the old Man-power instruments and am handicapped by the lack of adequate electrical instruments for which I now conceive my music.

The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.

The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

Why can I write 'South' with some assurance that you'll know I mean Richmond and don't mean Phoenix? What is it that the South's boundaries enclose?

Well actually, some weeks they'll write that I'm jealous of living in her shadow. Then other weeks, they'll write that all I want to do is loaf around on her money! It's ridiculous!

I used to tell my writing students that they must write the books they wished they could come upon - because then the books they hungered and thirsted for would exist.

Always write angry letters to your enemies. Never mail them.

I just wanted to make a record that wasn't escapism. Like, I didn't want to write another record that was devoid of meaningful content.

If you want to write the next great novel, but you think, No, this won't work because no one will buy it or it won't be any good, then you talk yourself out of taking a risk.

Why do you think I write these feminist songs, to try and teach myself to respect myself. You know, it's not because I'm a hero.

Most writers can write, most rock 'n rollers cannot.

If I felt, in the event of a royal wedding, inspired to write about people coming together in marriage or civil partnership, I would just be grateful to have an idea for the poem. And if I didn't, I'd ignore it.

No matter what you write or choreograph, you feel it's not enough.

I've been taking longer to write stories lately.

You don't sit up in a cave and write the Great American Novel and know it is utterly superb, and then throw it page by page into the fire. You just don't do that. You send it out. You have to send it out.

A lot of the songs I've recorded are songs I write.

I just can't seem to write songs about peace and love. Yeah right, how do you get that?

I really had little interest in becoming famous. When I write my book, it will be my guide to avoid becoming a rock star.