Arts, Media & Entertainment: Writing Quotes

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"The process hasn't changed, but the writer has developed. I still get up every morning and go to work"

Mordecai Richler, Novelist

"Some of the attitudes of Barney are certainly attitudes I share, but not all"

Mordecai Richler, Novelist

"I obviously prefer writing novels, but I take my journalism very seriously, and I enjoy doing it between novels. It gives me an opportunity to move in the outside world"

Mordecai Richler, Novelist

"I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again"

Joseph Wambaugh, Writer

"It's commonly said that people who've been ill in childhood and who've had an upset education never really regret that they do. It means that you don't look at the world in the way that other people do, and if you were inclined to be a writer, that's a help"

John Keegan, Historian

"I did know that the book would end with a mind-boggling trial, but I didn't know exactly how it would turn out. I like a little suspense when I am writing, too"

James Patterson, Author

"How can you stop writing?"

Tony Hillerman, Author

"I feel I've got 10 books in me"

Robert Hunter, Musician

"To be able to write a play, a man must be sensitive, imaginative, naive, gullible, passionate; he must be something of an imbecile, something of a poet, something of a liar, something of a damn fool"

Robert E. Sherwood, Playwright

"The longing to produce great inspirations didn't produce anything but more longing"

Sophie Kerr, Writer

"I come from the place where I am thinking 'I have put my blood on the pages'"

Albert Brooks, Actor

"Acting is glamour, but writing is hard work, so I'm going to be an actress"

Jacqueline Susann, Author

"I write box notes for Kino International, which specializes in distributing foreign films"

Bruce Bennett, Actor

"When I say 'work' I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs"

Margaret Laurence, Novelist

"I knew I'd have to go to work in real estate or something else, or I could never finish my novel"

Judith Rossner, Novelist

"The real problem is arranging that experience in a way that tells a story, which is just incredible enough to be interesting, but credible enough to be believed"

Richard Helms, Celebrity

"Sometimes you don't choose the material; the material chooses you"

James D. Houston, Writer

"The thing that I like about the way characters are written on the show these days is that nobody's perfect. Everyone has made a lot of mistakes and bad choices"

Crystal Chappell, Actress

"What that book does for me is give me the tools in the same way that I had the tools when I learned the regular scales or the alphabet. If you give me the tools, the syntax, and the grammar, it still doesn't tell me how to write Ulysses"

David Baker, Composer

"I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them"

John Ashbery, Poet

"I write novels and other things"

Jack L. Chalker, Author

"I tend to come up with people more than situations - most of my books start with a character"

Jane Haddam, Writer

"I really hate those books where the murderer turns out to be somebody you never heard of who pops up in the last chapter"

Jane Haddam, Writer

"Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept: you can get so much attention without having to actually show up somewhere... You don't have to dress up, for instance, and you can't hear them boo you right away"

Anne Lamott, Author

"I wanted the press to become something of a movement. Not a movement committed to a particular "ism," but a gathering together of writers with an aesthetic approach to literature and with a lust for excellence"

John Metcalf, Editor

"One of the ways I think I gain fodder for characters is by watching people"

Edie Falco, Actress

"Writing is the beast unto itself"

Omar Epps, Actor

"But with writing, all you need is a pad of paper"

Scott Caan, Actor

"A writer never reads his work. For him, it is the unreadable, a secret, and he cannot remain face to face with it. A secret, because he is separated from it"

Maurice Blanchot, Writer

"So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions"

Rick Moody, Novelist

"My contention is that that style is just as stylized as an ornate style"

Rick Moody, Novelist

"Impotence, fetishism, bisexuality, and bondage are all facts of life, and our fiction should reflect that"

Rick Moody, Novelist

"One thing you really have to watch as a writer is getting on a soapbox or pulpit about anything. You don't want to alienate readers"

John Grisham, Writer

"I seriously doubt I would ever have written the first story had I not been a lawyer. I never dreamed of being a writer. I wrote only after witnessing a trial"

John Grisham, Writer

"I don't want to force my politics on my readers"

John Grisham, Writer

"Richard Hugo taught me that anyone with a desire to write, an ear for language and a bit of imagination could become a writer. He also, in a way, gave me permission to write about northern Montana"

James Welch, Writer

"I think ethnic and regional labels are insulting to writers and really put restrictions on them. People don't think your work is quite as universal"

James Welch, Writer

"It's really a lot easier to write about things that are problematic. Who wants to hear how happy you are?"

Lyle Lovett, Musician

"These people are real to me, and situations keep coming up where their emergence feels natural. It's like meeting old friends. I hope readers feel the same way"

Jonathan Kellerman, Psychologist

"It didn't feel difficult at the time because I was so charged up about both books. Afterward, however, I was pretty tired. In a good way, like after a great workout"

Jonathan Kellerman, Psychologist

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