Quotes About Writers

Mervyn Peake came to fame first as an artist. Before the Second World War he was considered to be one of the best portraitists in England, publishing wonderful studies of writers, actors, and painters.

writers—like insomniacs—are so accident-prone, so obsessed with the calculus of bad luck and missed opportunities, so liable to rumination and a concomitant inability to let go of a subject, even when urged repeatedly to do so.

Thoughtfully or thoughtlessly he had left the keys in the ignition, and I switched on the radio. It was tuned to WQED. A local arts reporter I didn't particularly admire was interviewing old Q. about his life and work and personal demons. I reflected for a moment on the journalistic euphemism that allowed personal demons to writers who were only fucked up.

This is in my opinion why writers—like insomniacs—are so accident-prone, so obsessed with the calculus of bad luck and missed opportunities, so liable to rumination and a concomitant inability to let go of a subject, even when urged repeatedly to do so.

However multilingual we may be as readers, we find ourselves faced with a fundamental, inescapable responsibility. We must understand that any book & especially a great one is a complex & highly personal exchange between its writer & its readers. None of us reads precisely the same book, even if the words are identical. Readers too, are part of the ongoing process of translation that begins in the author's mind.

and yet the original Writers at Work volumes, especially the first three, possessed a magic all their own. As a teenager, I virtually memorized my paperback editions, greedy for insider tips about the literary life. Pound, Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, Colette, Waugh—they were all there. What has stuck with me the most over the years is their almost universal insistence on the importance of revision, of revising and revising again.

Bastian] didn't like books in which dull, cranky writers describe humdrum events in the very humdrum lives of humdrum people. Reality gave him enough of that kind of thing, why should he read about it? Besides, he couldn't stand when a writer tried to convince him of something. And these humdrum books, it seemed to him, were always trying to do just that.

Sometimes we need fellow radicals to remind us of what we, as writers, have set out to proclaim.

In America, writers are afforded the freedom to express themselves in unlimited manners. Creative liberty is a privilege.

Yet in general all writers can really do is lift a sensitive finger to the cultural breeze and sense a coming change in the weather; very seldom do they actually change it themselves.

great writers stamp the world with their minds, and the psychedelic experience will forevermore bear Huxley's indelible imprint.

I believe that the writers of Genesis had detected the inherent selfishness in human nature that I propose is in our genes, and invented the myth of original sin to account for it. It's an image. I am not acting as an exegete - I don't interpret scripture.

Many writers secretly long to be performers. You always get the 'if you weren't a writer' question. I would be a back-up singer, to stand in the back and go like 'do, do, do.'

As a singer, I just want to try to honor what the writers create - and as someone who's trying to write songs, I just hope I can stand in their company and not embarrass myself.

It's normal; Arab women have always been very active at the forefront of culture - as film producers since the 1920s; as singers, dancers, choreographers, writers for much longer than that.

If writers, like comedians or singers, could only hear themselves bombing as they worked, it's likely that certain books would be cut short after the first few leaden sentences.

I think I'm inspired mostly by other artists that aren't actors, like writers or singers or artists, for being so brave.

The success that I have in sitcoms comes from the fact that 60 percent of the writers are Jewish guys in their early to late 40s.

I always wanted to create a site that was sports and pop culture. '30 for 30' had a big impact because I loved how that was about finding, empowering and working with these incredible directors, and I thought the same thing could work for writers.

There's not that many people from the sixties who have progressed as writers and are continuing on. They're out there. But I'm one of them who's just continued on, following his own little inner madness.

It's a very hard thing to explain when we sit with writers on our shows. But then if they show us a sketch, instinctively we'd know who we'd play.

My secret skill, if it even counts as one, is saying really crass things that sometimes end up as dialogue coming from other character's mouths. My inner salty sailor is alive and well - the only problem is most of the writers on our show are just as inappropriate, so at the end of the day, it's hard to tell who came up with the line.

The pre-shoot days are so relaxed and fun and the writers are laughing. I love the rehearsal process.

I collect books, and I love libraries. I love bookstores. And to me meeting a writer is important. And when I saw a book with my name on it I almost passed out.