Quotes About Writing

I don't think I have a very novelistic brain. I like to read, but I don't know if I could ever write a novel.

I found myself in this conundrum of loving acting, but not liking the path that you have to take to do it. I was just never good at auditioning, so basically I decided I would just write my own stuff and if I could get a role in it, then fine.

I haven't written too many political lyrics. Nor have I written any pro-Canada lyrics, any kind of jingoistic, nationalistic cant... That stuff doesn't interest me and I don't even know if I could write that if I tried because I don't really feel it.

There's a lot of ignorance about how long it takes to write a novel. There's a lot of ignorance about how long a novel is in your head before you start to write it.

I loathe blogs when I look at them. Blogs look, to me, illiterate. They look hasty, like someone babbling.

I had started writing for 'Sports Illustrated,' which was really my dream job growing up. But the writing probably read like I was auditioning to write for 'Letterman' or '70s-era Carson.

I believe that a good comic script can succeed despite being drawn badly, but that a bad script can't be saved by good art. Of course, great writing and great illustration makes for a great comic 100 percent of the time.

Once I have the story in my head, I write it down. The illustrations usually come last.

I like working on stories where I can explore the darker corners of childhood without illustrations but with humor.

To me, this is one of the great things about writing kids' books: the illustrations.

I used to draw and illustrate, but I don't do that anymore because I just like to write. I like to leave the illustrations to actual professional illustrators.

I like writing in an illustrative, descriptive way. I prefer describing to rather than explaining. One, I rarely have anything to say. It's much more interesting for me to discover some meaning that you didn't know that you could create.

My husband wrote the story for my first book, but then he didn't want to do that anymore. So if I was going to go on being an illustrator, I had to start writing the stories, too.

I wrote 'And Two Boys Booed' several years ago, but we really chased around looking for the perfect illustrator, so it took a while.

I never wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a book illustrator. I used to hurry home from school and draw.

People have asked me a lot, 'What comes first? The pictures or the story? The story or the picture?' It's hard to describe because often they seem to come at the same time. I'm seeing images while I'm thinking of the story.

I discovered that, in order to write a magnificent piece, you should shoot the images because once you are filming, you are writing the script in your mind.

I don't put a lot of description in the books because I write books the way I like to read them, and that is I like to build images and be a creative reader, and so I write that way.

After we become literate, we literally 'think differently' about language: images of brain activation between literate and nonliterate humans bear this out.

I'm asked all the time, 'Doesn't it feel great to finish the novel?' And the answer to that is, 'No.' It's sort of a loss to stop a 10-year project, which is an imaginary project in the sense that it's a work of my imagination.

To be a writer, you need to like spending a lot of time by yourself in the company of imaginary people.

The good thing about writing a novel is that you're creating an imaginary world and can take a break when you need to.

Literature has always been the greatest fuel for my imagination.

You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination.