Quotes About Writing

When I'm writing, I write every day. It's lovely when that's happening. One day dovetailing into the next. Sometimes I don't even know what day of the week it is.

I had definitely missed the literary development game with Paper Lantern Lit, and writing exclusively wasn't giving me complete fulfillment.

I am a morning writer; I am writing at eight-thirty in longhand and I keep at it until twelve-thirty, when I go for a swim. Then I come back, have lunch, and read in the afternoon until I take my walk for the next day's writing.

I enjoy writing personal essays in the way of Charles Lamb because it goes back to the school days when I was good in writing essays.

The language has got to be fully alive - I can't bear dull, flaccid writing myself and I don't see why any reader should put up with it.

My best writing day starts with coffee from our local Cypriot cafe and a newspaper from the Tamil corner shop - they always ask what I'm up to, and why I haven't brushed my hair - then a short, sharp walk. I think as I go.

When I use the word 'buzz' in successive sentences, it's clearly time for me to stop writing.

I spent every night until four in the morning on my dissertation, until I came to the point when I could not write another word, not even the next letter. I went to bed. Eight o'clock the next morning I was up writing again.

My name became a brand, and I'd love to say that was the plan from the start. But the only plan was to keep writing books. And I've stuck to that ever since.

If a reviewer is beating me up, I just say, 'Oh well, my writing is not to his or her taste.' And that's as far as it goes. Because I will simultaneously read a review where somebody says, 'Oh my God, I had so much fun reading this book and I learned so much.'

I think that with the proliferation of writing programs, people tend to forget that you also have to get used to working alone, and you have to be your own support.

So it took me five years because in the interim I have been doing a lot of personal appearances and movies and some television series that went into the plumbing and I stopped writing for a while.

I got the acting bug back because I felt like all of a sudden maybe after all these years, maybe I might have something to offer again. I walked away from it after 'Signs' because I just felt I was a bit stale and it wasn't ringing my bells, so I focused on directing, writing and producing.

I was a Social Science major in college, with an emphasis in secondary education. I took as many courses on the American colonial era and westward expansion as I could. This turned out to be wonderful preparation for writing fantasy novels.

People would say, Can we develop a sitcom around you? and I would say, Not interested. I'm very happy doing standup and writing and taking my kids to school.

The first is that instead of writing a sequel, which is what most people do, this is in fact a prequel. Although we didn't know that when we began the process.

I like writing about places, about people and environments. When I create a world, it lets me go in and define the details of that world.

Writing is self employment, so you can make your own schedule.

The core of my writing is not art but truth.

I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything.

There is a growing literature about the multitude of journalism's problems, but most of it is concerned with the editorial side of the business, possibly because most people competent to write about journalism are not comfortable writing about finance.

More and more, you're seeing television shows that are better than 99% of the movies out there. I mean, you watch something like the last couple of seasons of 'The Sopranos,' which is some of the most sophisticated writing I've ever seen filmed and some of the best filmmaking I've ever seen - and it's a TV show.

I was always the observer, trying to understand what was going on. I was always the new kid. Writing became my safe place.

When I'm writing, sometimes it gets to that place where I feel like the piece is writing itself and I'm trying not to get in the way.