Quotes About Writing

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.

I knew I wanted to be in music, but I didn't know my role, so I did everything from interning at Rolling Stone to writing heavy metal fanzines to playing in a high-school band, and I think all those things probably helped in a way.

Through the misguided notion that writing about flying was easy, I had McCone become a pilot. When I learned that research in books wasn't enough, I forced myself to take lessons.

There's one thing I know for sure: When I'm most opinionated, my writing sucks.

We all have great faith in the writing team that puts together 'Heroes.'

I work day-to-day on C# and .Net and work at home two days a week so I can do deep thinking, writing and reflecting.

So, you know, when I think of survival as a creative act, it's not trying to plaster over the isolation or to, you know, rewrite your predicament into something positive with a happy ending or some kind of neat resolution. It's writing into the unknown.

Long before I fell in love with writing, I fell in love with reading. Sometimes, honestly, I feel like I'm cheating on my first love when I settle into my office chair to start work on the latest manuscript.

I suppose 'Gladiator' could be a Western - if you were writing your review in Athens, that is! To be honest, we didn't really think that way at the time. But there is common ground. And they both have horses - I liked that, obviously.

Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.

I always say writing a play is like toothache: I find it incredibly painful, and it's only once the play's out that the pain is gone.

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

I don't have a writer's room. I write all the shows myself. Ninety-one episodes a season, I'm sitting there at the computer writing and writing and writing because I want the voice to be authentic so that the audience is hearing from me and not other writers.

When I am writing, I do not distinguish between the natural and supernatural. Everything seems real. That is my world, you could say.

Writing's just as natural to me as getting up and cooking breakfast.

The most fun I ever have is sitting in with Rick writing, and we laugh at our own jokes.

And how is clarity to be achieved? Mainly by taking trouble and by writing to serve people rather than to impress them.

I had wanted to write 'The Possessed' as fiction, but everyone told me that no one would read a novel about graduate students. It seems almost uncivilized to tell someone writing a novel, 'No, you have to call this a memoir.'

I belong to a teachers' family and writing was my expression.

The problem with dragons is that everyone uses them. All the time. When that happens, they become commonplace. A lot of people think you can just throw them into a story and suddenly whatever you're writing is 28% cooler. But that doesn't work. All that does is make dragons into some boring cliche.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

I sing because I love singing. I perform because I love performing. I write because I actually enjoy writing.

You don't teach information in a writing workshop.

My writing is sort of 'Sidney Sheldon meets Anne Tyler.'