Quotes About Writing

'One With You' was the hardest book I have ever written. I rewrote it three times.

Writing has got to be some of the hardest work I know.

The hardest part is making the time to write. Not finding the time to write, mind you. Making.

I so find Harold Pinter and David Mamet's writing to be exciting, and obviously there aren't that many female - at least with Mamet, there aren't that many good female roles. But I always thought it would be interesting to play one of the guy roles.

My bread and butter is rom-com, and if I had to go back and tell my 15-year-old self watching 'When Harry Met Sally' that one day I would be writing a film in the same genre, I would have freaked out.

I knew I wanted to do something creative, and you don't necessarily go to Harvard to do that. It's not the best choice for creative writing.

If you chase the market, it's not going to come to you. You have to have faith in yourself. I think one of the differences in what I call 'civilians' and 'authors' is that we have an antenna hat buzzing all the time.

God knows nobody hated running more than me. Because I was writing and rewriting the script, I thought that I'm going to have to run because I'm going to have to know what it feels like to run.

It takes me about three years to write a book. They're very complex, and they take a lot of research, but also because the more popular your books get, the more popular you get, and people want to haul you off and look at you.

I write about what haunts me, and I write the books I myself am dying to read. I love it. I can't think of anything I'd rather do.

I do feel guilty. I do. Especially about my family, my children. I write about them, and I know that this will haunt them as well through their lives. Why did I do that to them?

I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city.

I have fun writing. I don't make it a chore. I don't have to struggle with it.

If I'm ever having a good time, I'll write about it so I'll remember it.

I don't know how many bestsellers I've got, or half the awards I've won, and I don't really care. I'm just having fun, doing something I love and getting paid for it. How cool is that?

When I was a kid and writing more acoustic songs, I was doing it more for the attention than for the love of the music. I knew I needed to change something because I wasn't having fun and wasn't liking the songs I was writing.

I thought my book was done, then we went to Hawaii and the whole last chapter happened.

I used to roof hay barns for my father. It's dangerous work. Writing is much better.

I don't think any writer is a friend to the reader if he or she is not funny.

Many writers who have had to deal with the subject of atrocity can't face it head-on.

That freedom of writing you don't get in other formats, I'd rather leave it to someone else to deal with the headache of drafting my book into a screenplay.

I was hurtling towards 40, and I'd always wanted to write. It does focus your mind, heading towards that big birthday. If there is anything you think you want to do, you think, 'I probably should have a go now!'

After a while, the characters I'm writing begin to feel real to me. That's when I know I'm heading in the right direction.

I write while listening to music, mostly because the world beyond my headphones is too chaotic.