Quotes About Writing

I didn't set out to write. It was just something I always could do. Teachers would say, 'you really have this gift,' but I just didn't care.

When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it.

American Gods is about 200,000 words long, and I'm sure there are words that are simply in there 'cause I like them. I know I couldn't justify each and every one of them.

There are some sentences you cannot see yourself ever writing. 'I heartily endorse the Conservative Party' would be one. 'I look forward to Justin Bieber's new record' would be another.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I did my dissertation on Kafka.

I don't really write any of my raps down. The same, Kanye don't write any of his raps down. Common. It's easy that way. For me, personally, I figure I will lose some of the inspiration in the time of me writing it down, or I'll say it a certain way because I wrote it a certain way.

It took me a long time to write again because Katrina destroyed the home I loved, and that robbed me of hope.

As my blog editor knows all too well, I wasn't all that keen to enter the blogosphere world.

It gives me a very keen satisfaction that, after listening to my blather all those years, former students are now seeing that I wrote a book, that I did have it in me.

The only way I seem to be able to keep going while I'm writing is to munch my way through boxes of chocolates.

I just want to keep going as long as I can. I'm getting older, and I want to keep growing, and I feel pretty excited about what I do. Whether it's true or not, I believe I'm doing better as a writer, which is really nice.

Other people have hang-ups about what's literary or genre or whatever, and that's sort of not my problem. You're supposed to write what you have to write, and you're supposed to keep moving.

I've been keeping diaries for 27 years.

In a faraway land called 'pre-2000,' what Earthlings now call blogging was called 'keeping a diary.' It's hard work to do well. I tried doing it in the early 1990s but had to stop because I no longer had a life - instead I had this thing that generated anecdotes to go into my diary. The diary took over and I had to stop.

When you do anything creative, you really have to live entirely in that world. I think my ability to do that is what makes me such a bad dinner guest. I'm always looking over someone's shoulder, taking in stuff around the room, immersed in the world of whatever I'm writing about, and keeping the characters completely in my head.

Writing is sometimes a balancing act between keeping things easily readable and being accurate.

Everything I write about either I have gone through or I know somebody has gone through, so it's very close to me, but sometimes it's about taking those feelings and exaggerating on them a little bit: being a bit more dramatic but still keeping them relatable.

I've been keeping journals since I was 13.

My daughter wrote a book called 'Kelly Tough' when she was 19 years old. It's a must-read.

I think Dennis Kelly's a really good writer.

The worst story I ever wrote was after the conviction of Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay. My co-author and I wrote a piece for 'Fortune' saying everything's going to be different now.

I'm trying to finish my book on the Kennedy assassination.

I was a writer. I wrote on the show. We were in the writer's room and by about episode five, I started to think: 'I really understand Roy Kent. I really understand Roy Kent. I think Roy Kent is within me.'