Quotes About Writing

Listen, I wrote 10 unsuccessful books before I broke through, so I'm looking all the time to keep my books fascinating. I want to write what people want to read, not push any message.

I can't do anything other than writing. I'm not very able, generally. If I'd not been a writer, I would probably be a very unsuccessful political adviser to someone or have worked for a council.

My dream role is to portray someone like James Baldwin. I've always been a fan of his writing, and I feel like he's one of our unsung heroes. He's been pretty much forgotten, and I think he needs to be recognized. He had to go all the way to Europe to find recognition and acceptance, and I'd just like to bring him to the forefront.

Everyone has a book inside of them - but it doesn't do any good until you pry it out.

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

I am not - thank heavens - one of those 'driven' writers who spend a fortnight buckled with empty fright over an untouched page only to wake at two in the morning feverish with paragraphs.

I wrote 'Mistress of Spices' at an unusual time when I had a near-death experience after the birth of my second son.

The comforts come from my movie and television writing. It is unusual to live this well simply from books.

You know, 'The Golden Girls' was a very unusual show to start on. I was young, and it was a show about old people, and it was a very traditional show, but it was also an amazing training ground for a joke-writer. It forced me to learn those skills.

It's very unusual for scenes to be added for a character.

I never thought it was unusual to write, and I've been writing or pretending to write since before I even started school.

I always read what I write out loud, and I did that long before any radio thing. My editor finds that unusual.

I used to go through the dictionary looking for unusual but nontechnical words. At one time, I thought the greatest word was 'jejune' and I would throw it into every piece because something about it appealed to me.

In 'Me Before You,' the two characters popped into my head fully formed, which is really strange and unusual. Other books, I sit on them for two or three months. I have a whole routine: I buy a nice book; I hand-write all their characteristics. I put them through little tests just to see how they would react to things.

Growing up, I loved to play. Writing was a natural outtake of play. I realize now, having kids, that maybe that's unusual. Living out in the middle of nowhere, I entertained myself by writing.

I have accepted the fact that I don't work very quickly, that I have been rejected a lot as a writer, and that what I do is unusual, so I just have to accept the terms and that it's going to take longer. It is what it is.

The only thing that infuriates me is that I have more unwritten stories in me than I can conceivably write in a lifetime.

Thank heaven, though, one of the few mistakes I haven't made is to talk about the unwritten book.

Capitol Records were very keen for me to write and see how I got on; I think that is what defined my sound. The first session I had was with two young up-and-coming writers, Nick Atkinson and Tom Wilding, and I went into a session a bit nervous because I hadn't written that many songs before.

I never went out to make the music that people would like. I mean, I tried, because every teenager tries to do that. But in my heart, I'd always come from gigs where I played upbeat guitar covers and I'd start writing sad songs on the piano.

I had a very normal, very typical American childhood. My father worked for the government at the Pentagon and my mother was an educator, so we had a very average upbringing, but that's helped me in my writing because I'm writing about ordinary things.

I've always had a little bit of darkness, and I've always been someone who was grieving. I had kind of had a tumultuous upbringing living in an abusive home, so for me, writing has always been a point of catharsis.

I was reading fan fiction on Wattpad, but they were taking a little bit to update the stories, so I started writing my own stories to entertain myself. I didn't think anyone would read it.

I've always been very upfront about the way I write, and I've always used the tools humorists use, such as exaggeration.