Quotes About Writing

The reason is that for many years I have avoided reading anything whatsoever that approaches my own line of country, out of a somewhat fanatical desire to avoid the risk of unconscious imitation.

I never considered I might make a career out of writing as I was going to school, so when I did turn my attentions that way, I was very ill prepared, having only what I read as a guide, and no formal training whatsoever. I credit that very ignorance with a great deal of my success.

I became a script writer with absolutely no idea of how to write a script whatsoever. I still feel a bit of an outsider in that regard. If I can maintain that approach to screenwriting, it can continue to be enjoyable.

I lock myself up in the apartment when I am writing a script. There's no phone, no Wi-Fi, no distractions whatsoever.

Outlining is like putting on training wheels. It gives me the courage to write, but we always go off the outline.

I have that love for music, when you are finding either old gems that you never heard or newer stuff that perks your ear. It keeps you trying to look for new stuff to write about it. You don't spin your wheels. I take that same approach to music and books.

When in doubt, it is better to do the less conservative thing and to err on the side of the more colorful, possibly terrible mistake. That comes from thinking of yourself as a writer.

Whenever I start a book, I swear it's going to be a short one. But then it's, 'Who was his grandfather? And how did he get there in the first place? And what kind of animals is he chasing?'

Whenever I write a part, I think there's this person somewhere in the world that this part is specifically for, and all I have to do is go searching to find that particular individual.

For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

My approach to comedy is that whenever it comes to me, I write it. With 'The Daily Show,' you have to write stuff every day, and that's a new experience for me, to not only write on someone else's schedule but a daily schedule.

I don't have a special place or ritual for writing songs, basically I write songs whenever an idea hits me, in my hotel room, on the road, in the plane.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

I've had to really teach myself that when you're not feeling it, you shouldn't write anything down because you're going to end up coming back and re-writing it later. Whereas, if you write when you're feeling something, when you're really in the streak, then that's when you're going to get your best stuff.

Writing on a computer feels like a recipe for writer's block. I can type so fast that I run out of thoughts, and then I sit there and look at the words on the screen, and move them around, and never get anywhere. Whereas in a notebook I just keep plodding along, slowly, accumulating sentences, sometimes even surprising myself.

I'd waste a holiday trying to set a story in this new place I'd visit, whereas I would never write a story about Indianapolis.

If I'm writing, I'll say something metaphorical or approximate, whereas scientists are very precise.

American actors are very different to British actors who have generally studied and been brought up culturally with the sense that the writer is the star and that their job is to serve the writing. Whereas Hollywood actors are brought up to believe that the actor is the star, and everything and everybody is in the service of them.

I've discovered over the years that being subject to both the adoration and the vilification actually makes me more disciplined. It makes me understand that it's the idea of writing a great book that propels me now, whereas it used to be the idea of success.

Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very hard, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, of conscious thought - whereas short stories slip out painlessly in a few days.

Don't force yourself to write. Some people can write a novel in a few months, whereas for others it can take over a year. I'm lucky to be one of the former - but, even so, if I'm not in the mood to write, I won't. I'll go off, do something else and come back to it when I'm ready.

I usually write at my kitchen table, nothing exotic. I don't need any equipment. I don't have to organise anyone else to rehearse, and when I do a reading, lots of women and girls come, whereas gigs are dominated by men. Not against men, but I want to communicate to women.

Will you tell me, 'Oh, painting is a special art, whereas anyone can write prose passably well'? Can he, indeed? ... Can you, sir? Nay, believe me, you are either an archangel or a very bourgeois gentleman indeed if you admit to having spoken English prose all your life without knowing it.

A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see.