Writing Quotes

The use of criticism, in periodical writing, is to sift, not to stamp a work.

I have learned many things in the 30 years that I have been writing.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy - which many believe goes hand in hand with it - will be dead as well.

I expect that in 40 years' time I'll be writing political tomes and working for an organisation like Oxfam.

I just have to proceed as usual. No matter what happens, nothing helps with the writing of the next book.

I prefer writing originals.

I have a great job writing for 'The Office,' but, really, all television writers do is dream of one day writing movies. I'll put it this way: At the Oscars the most famous person in the room is, like, Angelina Jolie. At the Emmys the huge exciting celebrity is Bethenny Frankel. You get what I mean.

In the writing of memoirs, as in the production of shows, too much caution causes the audience to nod and think of other channels.

Living composers writing for big band are very few and far between. There are not a lot of them, and I have a talent for doing it. I am zeroing in on what I do best.

I'd wanted to be a writer and when I came back to New York worked as a musician too, but I found my writing starting to get more and more referential to cinema.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy that kind of process.

I've published one book before, and now I'm writing a book of essays and stories about life in Tokyo. And I have one book coming out in May in Germany, about fitness.

I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.

Schools are really bad now. Schools are not only bad in reading, writing and arithmetic, they're worse in cultural aspects, like in music and art. They don't teach you anything.

Basically you come up with the fictional idea and you start writing that story, but then in order to write it and to make it seem real, you sometimes put your own memories in. Even if it's a character that's very different from you.

I started writing when I had three kids under the age of 4. I used to write every ten minutes I got to sit in front of a computer. Now, when I have more time, I function the same way: if it's writing time, I write.

I am writing something which I find satisfying and which I am prepared to put my name to as a composer.

My family is involved and my wife Brenda is a great, great writer. She helps me with the writing of everything and also sings with me. I owe a lot to Brenda.

Writing sessions can last an hour or sixteen hours, depending on how it's going.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

I get drunk writing words. I don't drink or do drugs, but I get so carried away with writing that I get inebriated from it.

A lot of my writing is not terribly civilized.

When you're a songwriter and you click with someone, you tend to want to keep writing with that person.

The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.

Writing a novel is one of those modern rites of passage, I think, that lead us from an innocent world of contentment, drunkenness, and good humor, to a state of chronic edginess and the perpetual scanning of bank statements.

Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I'm writing episode seven now and couldn't tell you what happens in episode eight.

He took me from not being able to write a word in terms of writing screenplays to being the king of wooden dialogue.

I identified in a very deep way with the individuals I was writing about because the theme that runs through this story is of extraordinary hardship and the will to overcome it.

I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated; it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am.

My mother bought a piano, put it in the front room, and I just started writing my songs.