Writing Quotes

Faithfulness to the past can be a kind of death above ground. Writing of the past is a resurrection; the past then lives in your words and you are free.

I had casually rented an apartment that cost $75 a month because I expected my writing to pay my way.

Writing a simple melody can take weeks to get it right where I want it, but I do quite enjoy it.

Writing in other voices is almost Japanese in the sense that there's a certain formality there which allows me to sidestep the embarrassment of directly expressing to complete strangers the most intimate details of my life.

When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.

I've always wanted to do a Crichton book. I really love his writing.

Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music.

I suppose that if I could have quit, I would have, because in those days I never wanted to be an actress, the acting was something to do while I waited for a chance to study writing and directing. But I guess I was just meant to be an actress. Because, here I am.

My career means, if you're a non-Indian writing about Indians, at least there's one Indian in your rearview mirror.

The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down.

Publishing your work is important. Even if you are giving a piece to some smaller publication for free, you will learn something about your writing. The editor will say something, friends will mention it. You will learn.

Novel writing wrecks homes.

At the point where I'm trying to force something and it's not happening, and I'm getting frustrated with, say, writing a poem, I can go and pick up the brushes and start painting. At the point where the painting seems to not be going anywhere, I go and pick up the guitar.

Seem to be telling this, but really telling that. Three-dimensional writing, like three-dimensional chess. Nabokov was the other master of that. You could learn something from Nabokov on every page he ever wrote.

My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration. The second is reading literature on the subject. The third is reflection.

The most fun I ever have is sitting in with Rick writing, and we laugh at our own jokes.

I love meeting 'the Odd Man Out' - like fans of 'Baywatch' who regret, as I do, that Tower 12 Productions didn't put nearly as much energy into writing and directing the show as they put into photographing and editing it.

I began to see that the short texts I was writing were poster material.

If you make your living writing, and you can't write anything, it's over. It's very frightening.

Then I discovered I loved writing poetry more than fiction.

We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.

The writers are writing human beings, and they're writing about the human condition and how difficult it is to function in that condition. I think it's one of the charms of the show, the idea of redemption and working towards becoming better people, for everybody involved.

It's like a novelist writing far out things. If it makes a point and makes sense, then people like to read that. But if it's off in left field and goes over the edge, you lose it. The same with musical talent, I think.

Yeah, writers do hate writing.

Writing crystallizes thought and thought produces action.

It varies from song to song, although Buck Owens and I recently collaborated on writing a duet together and am looking forward with a great deal of anticipation to recording that track for the new studio album.

The best way to learn about writing is to study the work of other writers you admire.

I love teaching online at my website and soon I'll be writing a math book. I love to teach math. I just don't have time for a full-time teaching gig. Acting is way too time-consuming.

I want people to notice my writing abilities are real and that I'm not just stuck in one situation.

Now I'm writing about contemporary Los Angeles from memory. My process was to hang out, observe, research what I was writing about, and almost immediately go back to my office and write those sections. So it was a very close transfer between observation and writing.