Writing Quotes

I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult.

People think writing a children's book is something you could do in an afternoon but it's actually really hard.

I think it would be cool if you were writing a ransom note on your computer, if the paper clip popped up and said, 'Looks like you're writing a ransom note. Need help? You should use more forceful language, you'll get more money.'

I really like the Observer. I think I'd love to have a column with a broad reach that would enable me to do some proper reporting, but keep it on sort of a humorous level. I've always had a very happy experience writing for them.

I'm always amazed by writers who tell me they plan everything at the beginning. I feel their writing days must be very bland.

My name became a brand, and I'd love to say that was the plan from the start. But the only plan was to keep writing books. And I've stuck to that ever since.

When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.

When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person.

I developed the habit of writing novels behind a closed door, or at my uncle's, on the dining table.

For me the writing, when I'm going to direct it myself, is really just the first draft, and I don't change it very much; I only change it on average about two lines per movie.

No matter how many times people say it - 'Oh, I'm just writing this for myself' 'Oh, I'm just doing this for myself' - nobody's doing it for themselves! You're doing it for an audience. So whether I'm performing or writing a book or playing music, it's definitely to be put out there and to be received in some way, definitely.

I don't think academic writing ever was wonderful. However, science used to be much less specialized.

Although we are being presented in Carnegie Hall, we have to furnish a budget for our guest stars, and for the music writing - which is a huge budget in any orchestra that plays popular music.

When we were making the law, when we were writing the literature and the mathematics the grandfarthers of Blair and little Bush were scratching around in caves.

It helps to be able to be alone. 'Cuz writing is done alone, unless you collaborate, but I don't do that. Ask my ex-wife.

I moved to New York in the 1970s and started writing when I was at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

In writing biography, fact and fiction shouldn't be mixed. And if they are, the fictional points should be printed in red ink, the facts printed in black ink.

I'm looking forward to getting back to my house and my Ugg boots and not washing sometimes, and getting back to writing.

When I first got my record deal, I was like, 'I just want to sing,' and I never put much thought into what really goes into a record. But as I got older, I developed a passion for writing.

And eventually as I kept writing it, something emerged that was not quite me but a version of me.

If somebody comes up to me, it's because they're moved by something I'm moved by. I've never taken a job I didn't love... So when somebody's coming up to me, or they're writing, they're in the same space I am in.

The holy spirit means the invisible power of Jehovah, holy because he is holy. This power of Jehovah operated upon the minds of honest men who loved and who were devoted to righteousness, directing them in the writing of the Bible.

I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place.

I'm not a chef. I haven't created any new technique in the kitchen. I'm not a rocket scientist. I think I'm good at writing accessible, fun, and affordable meals for the average American family. That's what I think I'm good at.

I don't expect you'll hear me writing any poems to the greater glory of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

I shall stick to my resolution of writing always what I think no matter whom it offends.

The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

It won't be long before we'll be writing together again. I just hope they have a decent piano up there.