Quotes About Writing

I guess I have an aversion to writing about big events and heroic actions. The everyday has always seemed most important to me in writing, probably because I believe people reveal themselves in how they deal with small details.

How it works for me is that a scene comes to mind, usually a scene between the hero and heroine, that depicts the emotional conflict. From that scene, the characters come alive for me. I don't do a lot of preplanning in any way when I write.

I like some of Annie Proulx, some of those very brief stories of hers. And I love J. M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello. I like Geoff Dyer. I also liked W. G. Sebald, especially his book 'The Emigrants'.

You have to write badly to write at all. If it's crappy, I will rewrite it later. But it will be mine. You can hear the resonance of an artist who goes into herself.

I believe an editor's job is to help a writer sound like himself or herself.

When a writer gets a second chance to look back on something, it's a great opportunity to say, 'Hey, this is really good, but we can do it even better.'

At the end of the day, I write characters that I want to play, because I just think, 'Hey, maybe one day it'll get made.'

I would have really loved to have gone on a hiatus to write for Daredevil.

When I write, I write for myself, and I have high expectations... so I'm just trying to meet those. I'm not going to distract myself with other people's expectations.

In high school and college, I started to read more and write science fiction myself. I was fully engaged in writing in the 1990s.

I love film and have taken a stab at a screenplay. I love writing dialogue and found it highly enjoyable.

English culture is highly literary-based.

In 2007 and 2008, the first two Danish ships were hijacked. I started to research it. I've had the idea of writing in this arena for a long time, but I could never find the angle of what kind of story.

I drop my kid off at school and then race home, and it's a very limited time. I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk, I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking.

I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk. I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking.

Every script I've read for 'Black Jesus' has been hilarious.

When I write, I like squeezing as many words as possible into each bar - I've listened to the Fugees and Lauryn Hill for as long as I can remember, so probably a big chunk of it subconsciously comes from that.

I'm just a guy up on a hill writing.

In my free time, I'd written 'Sammy's Hill' - it had started out as a play. I just did it for myself.

Hillary Clinton wrote a book. She got paid. I don't understand why I can't.

He never married. But he wrote a good book.

Give me a chair and a table, fire enough to keep me from shivering, the few books I like best and writing materials, and I am absolutely content.

Winna ye be gaein' awa', to write buiks, an' gar fowk fin' oot what's the maitter wi' them?

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?