Writing Quotations | Page 8

The perfect life would be to have an amazing part every year and to spend all my free time to just write.

Life happens, and I write about it wherever I am.

Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.

I went to Afghanistan in '96 to write about terrorist training camps south of Jalalabad and Tora Bora, in the mountains. I was there right before the Taliban took over, literally a few weeks before they took Kabul. The frontline wasn't terribly active, but it was definitely there. And they swept into power.

On a good day I write, all day.

Everything I know, I write about. My only research is what I did.

The point of writing my name to you is that I see who you are, you see who I am... and that's what it's about.

In my early twenties, that's when I really began to write. Before that, I was too busy working, keeping myself going.

I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.

I write in order to find out what I truly know and how I really feel about certain things. Writing requires me to go much deeper into my thoughts and memories than conversation does. Writing provides the solitude necessary to reflect on being in this world.

Being in the public eye is part of what I do, and taking on a multitude of different projects - television, radio, fashion, writing or deep-sea diving - is a blessing. It is also how I pay my bills and fund my own skating, as I don't have a sponsor or financial help from my federation.

I can connect with whoever I want to connect with in the world. And I can also write my own script. I don't have to follow rules. I can sort of just be unconventional.

A lot of people use a smiley face when they write letters. But it's this huge insane compulsion, like "I'm happy! I swear!" I'm not buying it. I don't believe them.

I don't read much of what I write because I worry about unintentionally borrowing something.

I usually write away from home, in coffee shops, on trains, on planes, in friends' houses. I like places where there's stuff going on that you can lift your eyes, see something interesting, overhear a conversation.

I started writing because there's an absence of things I was familiar with or that I dreamed about. One of my senses of anger is related to this vacancy - a yearning I had as a teenager. . .and when I get ready to write, I think I'm trying to fill that. . .

Well, the attractive thing about the subject of happiness is that it is notoriously difficult to write.

If you are a married man resident in Cuba, you cannot get a passport to go to the next town without your wife's permission in writing.

I got all the schooling any actress needs. That is, I learned to write enough to sign contract.

I was writing an earnest novel about cruises in the Caribbean and I just started writing 'Bridget Jones' to get some money, to finance this earnest work, and then I chucked it out.

For me, writing is more a process of discovering the book than planning it.

I put myself in the place of the listener when editing my writing. The last thing that I want to do is be preached at and told who to be or what to think when listening to an artist. However, I do want to be inspired. There's a fine line.

I didn't want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that's a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I'm proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.

So I started to relax and would work on my act eight hours a day, sitting at a desk writing at my grandmother's house, and I would put on Richard Pryor Live on Long Beach and would play it like a loop and think and write

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.

I am very busy and don't have a lot of down time, but I write my best songs in those situations. I enjoy my life the most when I have a bunch of things going on at the same time.

The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.

Usually I decide on what it is I'm writing next by the books I'm reading.

In writing a series of stories about the same characters, plan the whole series in advance in some detail, to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies.

You can try to reach an audience, but you just write what comes out of you and you just hope that it is accepted. You do not write specifically to a generation.

If you can write it, I can be it.

When I went to Hong Kong, I knew at once I wanted to write a story set there.

I love a good laugh as well, I think that's so important in life, which is probably why I've dabbled in comedy writing as well as horror. I think if you can make someone laugh or smile it's the most special thing in the world.

Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will.

I wish I could spend six years writing one novel.

The Internet is no longer the kind of thing where only six guys in the world can build it. Now, you can write a couple of checks and get one of your own.

As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything.

Definitely they write themselves. It's an amazing experience. It's like the characters have come alive and are sitting on my shoulder talking to me, telling me their tales.

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

In everything I've written, the crime has always just been an occasion to write about other things. I don't have a picture of myself as writing crime novels. I like fairly strong narratives, but it's a way of getting a plot moving.

The big thing that everyone forgets, you're famous and on TV and everything, but I think there's something very rewarding to be able to write a song, record it, and have it turn out as you heard it in your head, or even better.

Twitter taught me how to become better at writing jokes because it forces you to chip away at all the extraneous words.

Music is an important part of my writing process.

I always prefer to write songs about emotional situations and heartbreak because I like getting into the character.

When I write, I put one foot in front of the other. It's an act of faith. I just follow my heart.

I'm not the kind of guy who sits around at home and writes songs. Once in a while I'll pick up a guitar and noodle around, but it's rare.

Work controls my life, writing controls my life, performing controls my life.

Anyone can write one book: even politicians do it. Starting a second book reveals an intention to be a professional writer.

I would say I'd rather dig a ditch, you know, do hard, manual labor than write lyrics.

I was well traveled, and I created this illusion of literacy through reading and writing. I wrote a book of short stories.

When I was writing 'The Abstinence Teacher,' I really tried to immerse myself in contemporary American evangelical culture.

Technically, I've been retired for some time now. All I ever do is occasionally write songs for friends, such as one, for a friend who had just turned 80. I wrote a song for him called, The First 80 Years are The Hardest.

I love acting but I also love writing, especially comedy.

Action is greater than writing. A good man is a nobler object of contemplation than a great author. There are but two things worth living for: to do what is worthy of being written; and to write what is worthy of being read.

Every writing teacher gives the subliminal message, every time they teach: 'Your life counts for something.' In no other subject that I know of is that message given.

I can still boss people around. I can still write. I can still read. I can still eat, and I can still have very strong views.

I very much dislike writing about myself or my work, and when pressed for autobiographical material can only give a bare chronological outline which contains no pertinent facts.

The thing is, unfortunately, I write the best songs when I'm miserable.

I love writing. I feel ridiculously lucky that this is what I get to do all day.

If you aren't having fun, if you aren't anxious to find out what happens next as you write, then not only will you run out of steam on the story, but you won't be able to entertain anyone else, either.

The truth is, I initially became a singer-songwriter while still in my teens because it was the only way to guarantee that somebody on earth would sing the songs I was writing. Since then, I've performed just about everywhere: rock clubs, concerts halls, arenas, TV.

I write all year, and at the end of the year I put an album out. And if sucks, it sucks, and if it's good, it's good. I just let it lay where it lays. It doesn't stop from doing another one next year.

Lizzy Weiss is such a great writer, and she really writes for the performances.

Tell the story that's in your heart, and don't hold back. Write a book the reader will want to melt into.

A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him.

The future author is one who discovers that language, the exploration and manipulation of the resources of language, will serve him in winning through to his way.

This is not a screenplay. I don't do twenty drafts. I'm not going to show this to you until it's published or accepted for publication. You can make whatever suggestions you want, but I probably will ignore them entirely.

In order to write novels for a living - it's not pathological, but I do think and worry and brood and fidget about stuff that I'm working on.

Hollywood does not write parts for people like me, an elderly gentleman, and when they find out you're crippled, forget about it. No, I'll never work again.

Younger women tend to be busier, wearing more layers and more make-up. I don't know if it's because older women are more confident, or just that we don't care any more. But that pared-down approach is the same with the sentences I write; I take out adjectives and adverbs and keep the description to a minimum.

You write to become immortal, or because the piano happens to be open, or you've looked into a pair of beautiful eyes.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

Nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile... a stain upon the silence.

I picked up the writing on the very day he died. It was the only consolation I could find.

There are dozens of great American writers who write about the family.

Lots of people working in cryptography have no deep concern with real application issues. They are trying to discover things clever enough to write papers about

All I want to do is write songs about funny characters I made up.

I don't want to name any names, but I've worked on television shows where there's a guy writing for my generation who's, like, 60 - and it doesn't work.

I love when I'm writing and I'm cringing because I know I'm doing something right.

Sometimes I feel that the people I'm writing are more real to me than the people around me. When you take that imaginative leap, you're living so much in that world.

First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

I'm not a big fan of psychoanalysis: I think if you have mental problems what you need are good pills. But I do think that if you have thinks that bother you, things that are unresolved, the more that you talk about them, write about them, the less serious they become.

All personal achievement starts in the mind of the individual. Your personal achievement starts in your mind. the first step is to know exactly what your problem, goal or desire is. If you're not clear about this, then write it down, and rewrite it until the words express precisely what you are after. Every disadvantage has an equivalent advantage - if you'll take the trouble to find it. Learn to do that and you'll kick the stuffing out of adversity every time.

I was about to write that in the future I would chose my words more carefully but I'm sure I won't.

I've been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it's just whining, but every so often there'll be something I can use later: a joke, a description, a quote. It's an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. 'That's not what you said on February 3, 1996,' I'll say to someone.

My mother had always taught me to write about my feelings instead of sharing really personal things with others, so I spent many evenings writing in my diary, eating everything in the kitchen and waiting for Mr. Wrong to call.

A Train was born without any effort - if was like writing a letter to a friend.

When you are writing a song for something else, if you are doing something for money, I always think that's bad luck.

The flattery is nice, but awards don't add up to writing quality songs.

Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.

I love telling stories. I love the intimacy between the writer and reader. When you write sketches it's over in two minutes. When you write a book the characters have to have a bit of emotional depth.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression - all of that is very important.

I like writing for individuals with really rich musical personalities.

As an American man of the 1990s writing about a Japanese woman of the 1930s, I needed to cross three cultural divides - man to woman, American to Japanese, and present to past.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

If I write when I'm low, it will be a dark song, but I don't care. I want to be honest with myself at all times.

I sort of was good at writing essays. I was never very good at mathematics, and I was never very good at algebra. I loved science, but I wasn't sure of it.

The man who has done his level best... is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.