Quotes About Writing

I've just written this six-part sketch comedy series, which I've never done before. And I don't know how to pitch it. Am I supposed to just pick up a camera and put stuff on YouTube? Is that how it works?

When I was first offered the book deal, I was like, 'I am not a writer. I haven't practiced this.' My approach has been completely stream-of-consciousness, and then edit down, because that's been YouTube for me forever.

I just said, 'I need to do something because staying up and watching YouTube and late night TV is not cool,' so I just decided to write a script.

One of the first jokes I wrote was this nail salon bit that ended up blowing up on YouTube. That's kind of what propelled me into standup.

People started noticing my singing on YouTube, and then I came to L.A., and I lived on a studio couch. I wrote songs every single day with whoever I could write songs with.

I write mainly on trains because when I'm at home I'll be making YouTube videos or editing or just sitting down having a cup of tea as much as I possibly can.

My recommendation for SEO is very simple. It's Write Good Stuff. In my mind, Google is in the business of finding good stuff. It has thousands of the smartest people in the world, spending billions of dollars to find the good stuff. All you have to do is write the good stuff; you don't need to trick it.

My most prized possession would have to be 'Trick It.' I did rap here and there with some songs before, but 'Trick It' was my first time challenging myself to write lyrics from beginning to end.

I notice that students, particularly for gay students, it's too easy to write about my last trick or something. It's not very interesting to the reader.

If you write really good material, the rest just falls into place. There's really no trick to it.

For each detail I include, I throw dozens away. So I guess the first trick is to pick the right details, the most revealing details. Then I think one must simply write quick, clean, bright prose. For me, this means rewriting and rewriting: almost never adding, almost always cutting.

I have an agent, John Brockman, who is an agent to many academic authors like Dan Gilbert and Steven Pinker, and he's very good at conning academics into writing books. He pulled this trick on me.

This is the biggest trick of the sort of thing I write: creating fun, powerful stories with tons of interesting stuff going socially and culturally that doesn't overly confuse the reader.

I'm super happy to say that it's not that hard to write bad stand-up. I guess the trick is to write bad stand-up that sounds like you're trying to be good.

I always knew that if I was ever going to perform something that I wrote in front of an audience, I was going to do the thing I most like to experience as an audience member, which is to be tricked.

The nice thing about being a writer is that you can make magic happen without learning tricks.

A good TV writer needs all the same tricks a good novelist has.

They were a very good form for me - the way a short story has to be designed in order to function, to get in everything it needs to - and they tend to be absolutely chock-a-block full of mechanisms and tricks that writers use to do the things they need to and have the effects they need to have.

The way the show was conceived originally and developed, has always had good writing at the heart of it, it's very difficult to be good with bad writing. 'New Tricks' has that with the right level of humor running through the series, along with the investigations.

Ideas aren't magical; the only tricky part is holding on to one long enough to get it written down.

I find historical figures in general very tricky because you feel at times that you're serving two masters. Not only the arc and wonderful writing that comes with the show, but also the history of a person's life.

TV writing is tricky to navigate because you have so many different personalities - the actors, multiple producers.

Scrivener can be a tricky beast to get your head around. When you do, a bell rings, and suddenly it all seems perfectly clear. But to reach that stage you have to understand what it can do, and try it out for yourself. Which can be daunting.

Anyone who believes you can't change history has never tried to write his memoirs.