Quotes About Writing

I don't take notes. I don't have any notebooks. I keep on trying to do that because it seems like a very writerly thing to do, but my mind doesn't work that way. I tend to get the idea for a novel in a big splash.

I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction.

Writing is a hard gig, and it's hard to convey a lot. That's why scripts tend to be a little bit overwritten.

I'm pretty obsessive-compulsive, and I'm very fast. I tend to not write for a long period of time until I can't not write, and then I write first drafts in gallops. I won't eat right. I forget to do my laundry.

Basically, I tend to see the world differently to other people, and I write books and stories to alter the imagination of people so that they also see the world in a different way.

I tend to write songs that are about something pretty specific. A lot of them tell some kind of little made-up story.

I don't tend to write straight dramas where real life just impinges. But because I don't, when I do, it is very interesting to slap people in the face with just an absolute of life.

Once I start writing about something, it goes off rather fast, and sometimes details which might be interesting such as what the room looked like or what somebody said that was not exactly on the same subject tend to get lost.

And I tend to listen to NPR when I'm not writing.

Animation scripts tend to be much more descriptive and are lighter on dialogue.

I try not to have actors in mind when I write because the tendency then is to be influenced by either their last performance or your favourite of their performances.

When you write a roman a clef, there is a tendency on the part of the reader to wonder how much of this is true, how much invented.

Obviously, in journalism, you're confined to what happens. And the tendency to embellish, to mythologize, it's in us. It makes things more interesting, a closer call. But journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one.

We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment.

I've been told, and I think I recognize it, that there's a cinematic quality to my writing, with a sense of image and place and scene - and, some would say, my tendency to finish my books the way Hollywood finishes its films.

I think that usually the risk in trying to write children in fiction is the tendency to make them too cute or something.

A tendency to make metaphorical connections is an occupational hazard for those of us who write.

I have a tendency to face my bad fantasies in my books.

I've got to overcome that tendency to hide what I write or throw it away.

I think my writing has an old-fashioned feel to it for whatever reason. I'm just so influenced by the music that I listened to growing up, a lot of it out of the '60s, so it has a natural tendency to feel like it's from another era.

I was drawn to painting and filmmaking because I was interested in communicating visually, which spills over into my tendencies as a writer.

'Tender' is my most strongly autobiographical play.

I've considered myself a writer since I was 7 years old, but I've done a lot of jobs along the way. I enjoyed waiting tables and tending bar during college, especially when it got busy, so I might like managing a big restaurant. In fact, I might like managing many kinds of businesses or organizations.

The occasional motivational speech gig tends to pay better than the books and television.