Quotes About Writing

Read as much as possible, especially the work of writers who most deeply affect you. Make those writers your family. Never wait for inspiration to strike before getting to work; be disciplined and form the habit of writing every day.

Usually, when inspiration strikes late, the light of day reveals that I haven't gotten an idea for a book so much as a psychiatric case study.

I sit down and draw from my lyric book. I sit down and start looking through it and see if there is anything that strikes me that I've written.

For my stand-up, I always have my notebook with me and if something strikes me, I'll write it down.

If you want to be a professional writer then you need to write consistently. Inspiration strikes about once every blue moon which, for me, is once every two and a half to three months, which is when I'll get really and truly inspired about something.

If you only write when the muse strikes, you won't get anything done. You have to write consistently, when your schedule says you should. And that's hard.

I had a string of really awful jobs in Manhattan where my whole point was to do as little work in the world as possible so I could hoard time to write.

Depending on where I am in the process, sometimes I have a page count and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I have an hour count; sometimes I'm just happy to string a few words together. I do keep pretty rigorous hours, because otherwise you never get anything done.

I love finding out how authors work, because it can either go full Carrie in 'Homeland,' with loads of Post-it Notes and string on the wall and they know everything that's happening in the plot - or they let the characters tell them where they want to go and what happens next.

For me, playing music while I write is important. Several of the romantic scenes in 'Paris' were written with Debussy's 'String Quartet,' his 'L'Apres-midi d'une Faune,' or Canteloube's 'Songs of the Auvergne' playing in the background.

I write as if I were drunk. It is a process of intuition rather than placing myself above my story like a puppeteer pulling strings. For me, it's a scary, chaotic process over which I have little control. Words demand other words, characters resist me.

All my writing, I always do it in the studio, 'cause everything sounds good. The piano's there, the keyboards; if you want to put strings on something... And everything sounds good when it's in the cans; it sounds killer.

I've really tried to strip my writing of as many adjectives and adverbs as I possibly can.

Writing this book feels like a completely different activity from writing my comic strip because it's about real life. I feel like I'm using a part of my brain that's been dormant until now.

I always wanted to write something illustrated, and the Details strip finally gave me the opportunity.

Taking a comic strip character is very hard to write. Because comics are meant to work in one page, to work in frames with minimalistic dialogue. And a lot of it is left to the imagination of the reader. To do that in film, you've got to be a little more explanatory. And that requires a good screenplay and good dialogue.

The advantage of writing from experience is that it often provides you with details that you would never think of yourself, no matter how rich your imagination. And specificity in description is something every writer should strive for.

I'm not sure if you can strive your way into a career as a novelist. You have to write books; there are no short cuts.

Princess Diana was an icon and her effect on the world remains profound and inspiring. To explore her through Peter Morgan's writing is the most exceptional opportunity and I will strive to do her justice.

In everything I write, I'm always striving to hit the right mix of light and darkness, humor and pain, fun and seriousness.

Writing is rewriting; rewriting is writing - from the first crossed-out word in the first sentence to the last word inserted above a caret, that most helpful handwritten stroke.

The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram.

Chairman Mao not only introduced Pinyin in China, but also simplified half the Chinese characters, believing that fewer strokes would enable more people to learn to write the characters.

I made a very good living as a bad writer. I wrote a lot of comedies, 'Diff'rent Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' while all my friends were doing the good shows, like 'Cheers,' but I loved it because I got to be a working writer in Hollywood.