Quotes About Writing

Ordinarily, I'd claim that I'd never write directly about my children, but the opening conversation of 'Peter Elroy' is a verbatim conversation that my children had that I just loved: morbid, funny, passionate, and obsessed with the truth of things - all natural qualities of children that I'd like my work to contain.

With a series, keeping the quality high and writing incredibly fast, that's the first lesson you learn. You can't be real precious. When you're doing a feature film, you have 2 1/2 months; you sort of take your time. It's a different animal.

A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.

I have to be entertained by what I'm writing, so a lot of my stuff has a goofiness or scatological quality. If these characters can entertain me, then I feel like I can deal with the darker or more serious stuff.

I want to be read, and I certainly want to sell, but I also see my father's eye from Heaven: 'Always write quality. It doesn't matter if you sell; if it's good, it's good - if you capture the complexity of life.'

What I feel responsible for is, if my name is on a comic, I want it to be the best-written comic that I can possibly do. I want it to include some new things we haven't seen before, new story ideas, new characters. Quality, quality art, all those kinds of things.

If there's a gene, I got it from my ma. Her writing has this effortless quality.

Writing is one of the few activities where quantity will inevitably make quality. The more you write, the better you're going to get at it.

I try to write 1,000 words. Some people say it's not about the quantity but about the quality. I disagree. You need to write a lot in order to figure out what's good and what's crap.

It is often said of me - some intend it as a compliment, others as a complaint - that I write about a single subject: the Holocaust. I have no quarrel with that. Why shouldn't I accept, with certain qualifications, the place assigned to me on the shelves of libraries?

I write every morning. From about a quarter to nine to a quarter to one. It might be nine to one, or 8:30 to 12:30.

I never want to co-write. People never just write a quarter of a book, do they? I don't think you can get your story across.

Paul Laverty is a wonderful writer and we've worked together for a quarter of a century.

It took me a while to get back to 'The Queen of the Night.' I was angry with it as an idea because I felt like it had sort of ruined my life by taking so much attention away from 'Edinburgh.' So it essentially languished in a drawer until 2004, when I pulled it out, dusted it off, and thought, 'Oh, I actually really like this idea.'

I didn't have a desk to write 'Red Queen' on, so I got a nice writing desk.

The film 'The Queen' came about with a producer saying to me that he wanted me to write about the circumstances behind Diana's death. I think he was hoping that I would come up with some journalistic scoop that would identify an MI5 covert plot.

I started in journalism: my first magazine, I developed when I was 10. I sent it round to the neighbors. I also sent it to the Queen of England.

I'm a pretty early riser, so I'm sort of the queen of five A.M. I love getting up early. It's how I've written most of my books - that hour and a half before my kids are up.

I wrote my first play when I was eight. It was about a queen, and I - of course! - was the queen.

My introduction to the Queen was disconcerting, to say the least. 'This is Gyles Brandreth,' said the Duke of Edinburgh cheerily. 'Apparently, he's writing about you.'

When I first started to write, I was aware of being queer, but I didn't write about it. Queer poems would probably not have been accepted by the editors I sent them to.

One of the ready advantages of writing a road or quest story is that it mirrors the experience of writing a novel.

I've been asked this question so many times, do you feel you need to write a book for adults? No, I don't need to write a book for adults.

I wrote my book 'The Amorous Busboy Of Decatur Avenue' completely like a writer does, writing it down, re-writing everything. But in my stand-up, I improvise initially, never questioning it too closely.