Quotes About Writing

Writing is finally play, and there's no reason why you should get paid for playing.

I started off as a journalist when I was young and I did not get paid unless I wrote three stories a day.

I've learned to really love revision over the years and worked hard to build up my craft muscle to make my revisions less and less painful with each book.

My first novel didn't sell well. It was really painful and humiliating and shocking to me.

There are certain things that are too painful for people to even write about sometimes, and there are certain things that are too hard to read about again.

When I begin to write a story, I usually know how things will end. It's the journey toward that point I must discover. The process is sometimes painful, but also exciting.

'Ghost City' was actually one of the few instances of non-fiction that I had written, and I felt that I probably said what I wanted. I think it must be different for every author; I haven't done very much of it, and perhaps, in a way, I found it rather painful, which is why I don't really do it very often.

I eventually want to do writing on all the films, but not necessarily to be the writer. Writing is a painful, painful thing; it really is.

People lie to themselves all the time about what they've been through and what it means - I'm no exception. But you write those lies down - lies that really matter to you and that are really painful to let go of because they've become a part of who you are - and they don't work.

I am keenly aware that in writing about my mother, I am writing about my aunts' sister, and that in writing about my grandmother, I'm writing about their mother. I know that my honesty about how my view of these people has changed over the years may be painful.

I knew it would be painful to write a memoir.

Three hours of creating is taxing on any brain, and you should stop there. Some days, you may stop without any words at all. It's much easier to write new stuff the next day than to go through painful deletions of a day's worth of crap you already wrote.

Writers like to write, and writing in different forms - short, long, bite-sized, done on the fly, done with painstaking attention - all interest me.

I start each of my scripts by going on a journey of painstaking research and discovery, much as I do a piece of long-lead journalism.

Sometimes I write what I can't paint, and I paint what I can't write. I use a different part of the brain.

I like to paint pictures with words, 'cause I can't draw for anything.

I don't paint anymore. I haven't since I abandoned it at 19, in order to begin writing seriously.

I am always happy up a ladder with a paintbrush in my hand. And I wish I had more time to spend in the garden - not least because I get good ideas for writing when I'm out there.

I found that I was much more interested in writing and that I didn't like the illustrating at all. I had always been the hardest on myself when I drew and painted. I am not hard on myself when I write. I like what I write, so it is a much happier process.

Until 1954, I'd only ever thought of being a painter, but I earned my money when and where I could. You could say I drifted into writing.

When children draw or do rudimentary painting, the whole human being develops an interest in what is being done. This is why we should allow writing to develop from drawing.

I have always loved science, but I have always loved the arts - drawing, painting and, yes, writing - more.

When I'm painting and drawing I only do people. Acting is obviously portraiture - and writing is as well.

It's helpful for me to get ideas - the physical action of painting. Sometimes it frees up your writer brain. It's nice for me now that the writing has become a serious career that painting can become more like a hobby.