Quotes About Process

I don't try to be satirical. I just try to get what's in my head on the page. And that part is hard for me to do. It takes a long, long time to make it poetic, somewhat essayistic.

It's pointless to be critical of your stuff once it's done. I don't spend a lot of time agonising over it. It's of no importance once it's finished.

The only way to write a novel is to proceed as if you had all the time in the world.

Love and faith are both a search, a process, it doesn't stay the same; it comes and goes. In some people, it's asleep for a long time and then it wakes up as it evolves.

You really just have to love the process. I can't tell you the amount of film sets I've been on where people are talking about Oscars in the middle of the production. It happens all the time.

We can never be like lillies in the garden unless we have spent time as bulbs in the dark, totally ignored.

I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio.

If you spend any time on the shooting of a drama, for television or movies, it's very slow and there's a lot of standing around.

Writing a novel is always complicated, it's not like you snap your fingers and go, 'Ah, I know what I'll write'. For me, a lot of the time, I have to write and as I write, I learn about the story.

[on editing of the films] There is always a question of time, and the director. I've worked with a lot of directors who don't mind my involvement. They appreciated it.

At any one time, I'll have 30 to 40 pieces going on in the studio, so this is not economically driven at all.

There's a satisfaction in seeing something happen over time.

And what I've found over time is that for me to write a poem that I think is worthy that I can live with, two things have to happen.

So, the result though is by the time I've got something, it's been worked over so many times that although I do make changes as the end, often by the time I've gotten it, it's pretty much completed.

My main focus is to try to give myself time to heal...Forgiveness takes time. It is the last step of the grieving process.

That's just a part of being an artist: you can't write great stuff all the time, because if you did, then you'd be inhuman. The human side of people is that sometimes they fail.

I have a hard time memorizing stuff. I'm always in the process of writing a new song, so trying to learn a new one takes a minute.

I never know the endings when I write. It's a turnoff when you know the ending. You lose much of your incentive to write when you already know. It's like seeing a movie a second time.

I'm sure you're always working in your head, but when you're actually physically working, you're in your studio, right? For me, it changes all the time. That's something I really love.

Whenever I'm making a feature film, I wish I were filming a documentary, because making feature films is so stressful. It happens every time.

I'm not used to not having enough time to live with the songs. Usually, if I write something, I live with it for a little while.

Research is always a very necessary part of my process because all of my books to this point have been historical. Time spent in the library adds to one's wealth as a writer or artist.

I don't think time is involved in how the thing is made.

I'm sure you're aware, with the time it takes to put these books together, everything can suddenly start coming out at once even though I wrote anything between one and five years ago.