The quality which makes man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and masochism. Like one of… — James Jones Copy Share Image
In a country this large and a language even larger ... there ought to be a living for somebody who cares and… — John Updike Copy Share Image
I spent most of my 20s working as an actor. I started writing and directing because I was frustrated with the types… — Marielle Heller Copy Share Image
I feel it's very important to let individual writers' voices come through. But the character has to be consistent. — Paul Lieberstein Copy Share Image
I always write after I think for quite a long time, so the actual writing time is rather short. I think a… — Helen Vendler Copy Share Image
When I'm writing I've been playing something for a couple of hours and I'm almost in a trance. At two or three… — Kate Bush Copy Share Image
I always wanted to be a writer but everyone kept telling me it was impossible to break into the field or make… — Barbara Hambly Copy Share Image
Mr. Fulbright hasn't said anything new or interesting or clever in five years; his intellectual well dried up the day after Walter… — Spiro T. Agnew Copy Share Image
Since I was a kid, I could make up stories, I could make up funny jokes and I could always do it.… — Woody Allen Copy Share Image
I wouldn't dream of commenting on Hilary Mantel as a novelist, frankly I'd be grateful if she stayed off my patch as… — David Starkey Copy Share Image
You can call someone a lousy writer. You can say you hate their book. You can even call a person 'white trash'… — Carole Radziwill Copy Share Image
It's our job as fiction writers to provide a delight that nothing else can - to such a degree that people have… — Jennifer Egan Copy Share Image
When I decided to stop using quotation marks, it presented technical challenges: you have to conceive of dialogue differently and structure it… — Catherine Brady Copy Share Image
You have an absolute freedom in Mexican writing today in which you don't necessarily have to deal with the Mexican identity. You… — Carlos Fuentes Copy Share Image
From my vantage point, when I'm criticized in a way that I can hear what's being said - i.e., the issues -… — Steven Petrow Copy Share Image
I've been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it's just whining, but every so… — David Sedaris Copy Share Image
The greatest thing about writing a book is that at first it's all inchoate, but the more you work on it, the… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
The idea I pursue is the one that keeps coming back to me. The characters I think about as I'm falling asleep… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
The whole ecosystem of celebrity has broken down for writers. If you go back to the '50s, '60s, and '70s, writers were… — James Wolcott Copy Share Image
I'm a writer. I never expected to be recognised on the street. I never expected to get that kind of coverage, good… — James Frey Copy Share Image
I wanted to write a novel where the meaning is in the story and characters and the subliminal, in the shades and… — Frank Peretti Copy Share Image
I was very influenced by films and books like 'Serpico,' 'The French Connection,' and 'Prince of the City.' They were some of… — Don Winslow Copy Share Image
There are lots of actors, and you need a way to stand out. Writing comedy sketches was a way of doing that. — Sharon Horgan Copy Share Image
If you mean do I use the guitar when I'm sitting at home writing stuff, then basically no, never. All I would… — Fred Frith Copy Share Image
Writing is how I communicate my deepest beliefs, and what I hope are helpful observations about our dual citizenship, as children of… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink. — F. H. Bradley Copy Share Image
If you write a written book, you're gonna get slowed up by lawyers wanting to see what you say about this person,… — Jimmy Page Copy Share Image
One cannot simply decide to write apolitical poetry, in the way one decides to drink lemonade instead of tea, it's far more… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I think when you write an enigmatic character into a film, you have to have real confidence that the audience are going… — Gemma Arterton Copy Share Image
Creative Writing was not a form of psychotherapy, in ways both sublime and ridiculuous, it clearly was, precisely that. — Anonymous Copy Share Image
Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn't matter… — Anne Enright Copy Share Image
When the material written is very good then half of your work is done by the writer itself. When there's a well-defined… — Jaideep Ahlawat Copy Share Image
Writing a column, a weekly column for the New York Times, is really tough, and I wasn't prepared for the demands that… — David Plotz Copy Share Image
Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his… — Isaac Bashevis Singer Copy Share Image
“When I’m writing my own stuff, it’s like swimming upstream. Or … falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to… — Rainbow Rowell Copy Share Image
We can't make movies without scripts, and there's no cost to writing a script, so my advice to newcomers is do it… — Jay Chandrasekhar Copy Share Image
What is important-what lasts-in another language is not what is said but what is written. For the essence of an age, we… — Peter Brodie Copy Share Image
One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as… — Denise Levertov Copy Share Image
He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit; he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
