Quotes About Writing

Once I started getting paid to be a writer and not having lots of other gross responsibilities, like making the puzzle or whatever, then my ambition changed, and I thought, 'Now I want to be a good writer.' And that became my ambition.

I don't think I can write a book as nihilistic as some of my early ones. They're so bleak. I don't think I would enjoy that as much anymore. You really become fixated on ways out.

The biggest difficulty in film industry today is not that of getting dates, actors or finance, but writers. We don't get writers. They are like heart surgeons with whom you need to meet after fixing an appointment.

Antonio Damasio is a distinguished neuroscientist with a flair for writing about science and an enthusiasm for philosophizing.

In the business world, I did fairly well, but wasn't happy. A bout of sciatica put me flat on my back. All I could do was read, listen to my mother's stories about the Sandovals, and daydream: a return to self. My writing career had begun.

For a writer, children make life needlessly hard. I've muddled through a lot of things, but I have not muddled through my writing life. I work absolutely flat out, giving it my all.

When people write fan-fic sequels to one of your books, it gives you a very strange feeling. It is very flattering but strange, as if the characters have come to life again without you knowing.

For anyone to take the time to care about what I write and read a book is so flattering to me because it's fun.

The flattery is nice, but awards don't add up to writing quality songs.

Fiction has always been a way of examining society and its flaws and trying to expose them.

Mr. Faulkner, of course, is interested in making your mind rather than your flesh creep.

I like to let the story flesh itself out, and usually, the characters make their own decisions as things get under way. Dialogue especially seems to write itself once I'm familiar with the characters and their backgrounds.

I just really like people, and being a freelancer can be lonely during the day, when you're at home trying to write anything you can. 'Flight Of The Conchords' was so wonderful because I had a family for two years.

There are so many ideas that you just come up with on a day-to-day basis when you're a writer that it's very difficult to want to go back to an old fling, so to speak.

Do you all have a living room floor or a bedroom floor? Then you can write a book.

Writing is challenging work because it's so easy to get consumed with how it's going, what's going to happen to it, who's going to like or not like it. You want to get all of that stuff out of your head and just let the work flow.

Sometimes I write with music on, and if I'm in a good flow, I don't even hear it.

I continue to wish that writing were easier, that it would flow out completely perfect with no need for revisions.

My last book, 'The Language of Flowers,' I wrote completely on naptime, when my little kids were asleep.

If you think about writing a book, or when I did, it seems daunting, but when I began writing, it just started flowing.

'Scalped' No. 1 was only the third comic script I'd ever written. I really learned a lot about writing on the fly with that series.

I've learned things about the craft of writing and about structuring a book and about character development and so on that I've just learned on the fly.

I don't read or write music in the traditional sense, so I have to figure it out on the fly while I'm in the studio.

When writing, I'm not thinking about war, even if I'm writing about it. I'm thinking about sentences, rhythm and story. So the focus, when I'm working, even if it's on a story that takes place at war, is not on bombs or bullets. It's on the story.