Writer Quotes

Where I came from, no one was a writer.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

Everything around a writer, or musician in the record business, probably everything in all the United States or in all of western civilization, is about competition.

As far as I'm concerned, the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.

My whole life experience feeds into my writing. I think that must be true for every writer. Clearly the Army and combat were major influences; just the same, you need to understand that many of the writers we have now couldn't load a revolver.

I would still like to have that luxury, to be able to just sit and draw for hours and hours and hours. In a way, that's what I do as a writer.

As for Tenacious D, of course it could work as a full length movie; all it requires is a great writer and great director with an ability to think outside of conventional film comedy.

The talent of a true writer and poet is in the ear.

The writer's duty is to keep on writing.

I still can't quite believe it. Although there was something about the fact that it was a first-time writer, a first-time producer, and a first-time director all at the same time.

Steve Martin is such an exquisite and precise writer. Everything is so clear; it's like a bell. He says what he means and says it so beautifully.

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

We served on the editorial board of a literary monthly called Face in 1968 and 1969. He was a young writer, and I was also interested in broad cultural issues. We agreed on all major issues and became friends.

The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and no other task is of any consequence.

I'm not a born writer, and I don't enjoy writing.

Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.

One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there.

Oftentimes what happens is that the writer understands one character, but they don't understand the other one, and the other one ends up not being written as well.

But I think there are a set of experiences that turn a potential writer into a working writer, and then there are places in your life were you start to recognize what you want to do.

As a writer, it's disheartening to write books that you pour your soul into and not have them distributed widely enough to find their audience.

The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer.

I'm not sure that the benefit - as a writer and as a citizen - that I would get from reading at least the front page of the Times every day or every other day would outweigh the depression.

The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.

How do I tell people who I am? Not being a writer, the only way is to sing songs that reflect my opinions.

For me, being a writer was never a choice. I was born one. All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. I wrote on everything. I didn't do my homework so I could write.

For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writers are able to learn a living from their work that is equivalent to the living earned by the average dentist or accountant.

I just have a thing for writers. Maybe it because I'm just so not a writer.

Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very hard, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, of conscious thought - whereas short stories slip out painlessly in a few days.

I had always wanted to be a writer who confused genre boundaries and who was read in multiple contexts.

The thing is, emotion - if it's visibly felt by the writer - will go through all the processes it takes to publish a story and still hit the reader right in the gut. But you have to really mean it.