Quotes About Insight

Thank God for being a writer, because you do sort of find out what you think by the process of writing.

I'm a schizophrenic writer.

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

Let's face it, the great comedians now that are handicapped in the looks department are tremendous writers.

Writers always know whether you like them or not.

Writers have to be observant. Every nuance, every inflection in a voice, the quality of air, even - they all get mixed up in this soup of the story developing in our minds.

It really helped me as a writer to understand how other writers think.

Artists - musicians, painters, writers, poets - always seem to have had the most accurate perception of what is really going on around them, not the official version or the popular perception of contemporary life.

As writers, we are sketching people all the time when we write fiction.

Having an opportunity to sit down with Directors, Actors, Musicians, Writers and Composers to talk about their relationship with music, both professionally and personally is my idea of heaven.

Writers obviously have to bear witness to the harsh face of the age.

One of my favorite things, as a critic, was finding books by new writers who possessed a distinctive voice and vision, an inventive gift for storytelling. I also loved immersing myself in works of nonfiction that taught me something about the world, that made the past come alive or shed light on hidden corners of history or the news.

Science fiction writers aren't fortune tellers. Fortune tellers are fakes.

I have come to understand and appreciate writers much more recently since I started working on a book last fall. Before that, I thought golf writers got up every morning, played a round of golf, had lunch, showed up for our last three holes and then went to dinner.

The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.

As writers, it is our job not only to imagine, but to witness.

You know, all writers are vampires and they'll look around and they watch you when you're not even thinking they're watching you and they'll slip stuff in.

It's also not unusual for writers to look backward. Because that's your pool of resources.

Writers do well to carefully attend to those moments of inspiration, because chances are that they're writing from a very deep place. The subsequent search that ensues to continually attend to that voice that you hear is what is going to give the story drive.

The greatest writers of this age... are aware of the mystery of our existence.

Writers are good at plucking out what they need here and there.

All the great writers root their characters in true human behaviour.

I've discovered just how symbiotic the relationship is between writers, directors and actors. They ask the same questions and strip down texts in exactly the same way.

There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.