Quotes About Authorship

I think with my book, I wanted to first of all just be completely involved in it. I wanted to write it; I didn't want a ghost writer. I wanted to be honest about everything.

I had no ghost writers for the books - I wrote every line myself.

As a ghost writer, many words I have written have been for someone else.

Whenever I run out of people to write about, I cook up a few ghosts, or they appear before me.

Celeste Ng is such a gifted writer.

I always say being a writer is the best gig around. I love it.

The last book I read before I wrote my first book - 'Ghosts of Manhattan' - was 'The Gold Coast' by DeMille. I loved it, and it gave me a lot of energy to start into my own.

I can tell you that when Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, our writer, when she would work on some of these grander novels like, say, a book like 'The Golden Bowl', that would take her months and I wouldn't know what she was doing, really.

I had a lot of really terrible advice early in my writing career, and I cheesed off people without even knowing it, all the while thinking I was implementing good advice. Well, what can you do about it? Next.

You don't need to have kids to write a good book for kids. I don't want my kids to see themselves in my books. Their lives should be their lives.

If only one in 1,000 people that I talk to goes on to write a good book, that's one more good book that I've helped along... and maybe it will be a book I love myself five or 10 years down the line.

It's very hard to tell somebody how to write when they're so good, and they're a brilliant writer and a really good guy.

The book that first made me want to be a writer is Flannery O'Connor's short story collection 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.'

I'll continue doing 'Jingle Belle' as long as I've got a good story for her.

I tell a good story.

If I can find the right idea, I can get out of the way and do a good story.

I forget a book as soon as I finish writing it, which is not always a good thing.

I never write with constraints, which I don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing.

The good thing about directing a screenplay that you've written is that you see the film in your head as you're writing it and then you see those decisions through to the end.

I want to become a very good writer.

You can't teach somebody how to be a good writer.

I don't think I'm a brilliant writer, but I'm a good writer, and it's just so empowering to get involved.

To make anything successful, you need a good writer.

I never wanted to be a celebrity writer. I wanted to be a good writer. I'm still trying to be a good writer. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning.