Arts, Media & Entertainment: Writing Quotes

Similar topics:Anime Art Games Movie Music Poetry

"I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective"

James Ellroy, Writer

"It's part of a cycle of stories I'm writing where I deconstruct classic science fiction"

Cory Doctorow, Journalist

"There's a story everywhere. Being bored to death someplace is basically a funny proposition. What you have to watch out for is you don't write a boring story about a boring place"

Tim Cahill, Athlete

"I wanted to be a writer from my early teenage years, but I never told anyone. Writers, in my opinion, were god-like creatures, and to say I was striving to be a writer would be incredibly arrogant"

Tim Cahill, Athlete

"On the other hand, I still approach each book with the same basic plan in mind - to put some people under severe stress and see how they hold up"

Terry Brooks, Writer

"I focus on the writing and let the rest of the process take care of itself. I've learned to trust my own instincts and I've also learned to take risks"

Sue Grafton, Novelist

"Henry is entirely invented, though by now I feel he's as real as anyone I know"

Sue Grafton, Novelist

"At that point, I sat down and made an alphabetical list of all the crime related words I could think of. So here I am now, nearly half-way through, probably tied up until the year 2015 or SO"

Sue Grafton, Novelist

"TV writing is different than other mediums, involving the writer"

Tom Skerritt, Actor

"A predilection for genre fiction is symptomatic of a kind of arrested development"

Thomas M. Disch, Author

"I think the criticism that I take to heart is from other writers that I respect"

Steve Earle, Musician

"I look for those moments that are "gee whiz" moments. There's some "gee whiz" stories in our show, and they can't be written like A-1 in the Times. They have to be written more like Page 6 in the Post"

Shepard Smith, Journalist

"And I like the way Cain writes his women. Very strong. They're kind of lusty, they know what they want, they're full of conviction. Cain's women are sexual"

Pia Zadora, Actress

"But having said that, there's also a sea change in attitude towards media"

Robert McChesney, Critic

"I work on words, mostly, toward them being poetry or short stories, and then some of those become songs. They all find their place in the world, but they all start off in the same place. I'm always painting and drawing as well, and it's an ongoing creative assignment"

P. J. Harvey, Musician

"People and places are the source of my work, both in prose and verse-and this remark is not the truism it seems, for I do not distinguish as sharply between a place and a person as most people seem to do"

Leonard Alfred George Strong, Writer

"There is some mysterious thing that goes on whereby, in the process of playing Shakespeare continuously, actors are surprised by the way the language actually acts on them"

Kenneth Branagh, Actor

"I don't think Hamlet is mad, nor is he predisposed to be a gloomy or tragic figure"

Kenneth Branagh, Actor

"If an ordinary person is silent, it may be a tactical maneuver. If a writer is silent, he is lying"

Jaroslav Seifert, Poet

"I keep going over a sentence. I nag it, gnaw it, pat and flatter it"

Janet Flanner, Journalist

"I wrote for years before I was ever published, and I don't think I could ever stop. That said, I was also a veterinarian before I sold my first book, and I still volunteer my time to help with animal welfare causes. So that is a career I would be happy to return to - while still secretly writing strange stories back in my doctor's office"

James Rollins, Author

"You asked what is the secret of a really good sketch. And it is a sketch is a small play. It's got a beginning, and a middle and an end. It should have a plot; it should have the characters, conflict. It is a little play. And in it, will be funny stuff"

Harvey Korman, Actor

"What I wanted to do and what I needed to do was something entirely different, and through reading Roussel I learned that I could do what I wanted all on my own and that I didn't have to rely on what had actually happened in my somewhat limited life and reading"

Harry Mathews, Author

"In the first year, 1988, I wrote and sold 3 novels"

George Stephen, Businessman

"My whole life experience feeds into my writing. I think that must be true for every writer. Clearly the Army and combat were major influences; just the same, you need to understand that many of the writers we have now couldn't load a revolver"

Gene Wolfe, Writer

"When I was in college, I used to write little ditties and short stories and poetry for my friends. Writing a book is another thing. It is so much different from my traditional day of dirty fingernails and greasy hair and hot pans"

Mario Batali, Celebrity

"As a columnist, I realize that whatever amount of corruption I expose, half my readers will block it out, although they may get a frisson of joy in the process"

Margaret Carlson, Journalist

"And I don't think I'm giving away any secrets here, but there are a lot of terrible scripts in this town"

Frank Darabont, Director

"My work schedule has changed over the years. The one constant is, when at work on a novel, I try to work seven days a week, so as not to lose touch with that world. Within that, I'm flexible on hours and output"

Donald E. Westlake, Writer

"I start with the story, almost in the old campfire sense, and the story leads to both the characters, which actors should best be cast in this story, and the language. The choice of words, more than anything else, creates the feeling that the story gives off"

Donald E. Westlake, Writer

"In early draft, it never satisfied me, and that was when it clicked into place and it went so well as a diary"

Colleen McCullough, Author

"If I didn't see its place in the Saga when I planned it, I probably wouldn't write it at all"

Leslie Charteris, Writer

"Introductions, that is, belong to the masterpieces and classics of the world, to the great and ancient and accepted things; and I am here introducing a short, small story of my own which appeared in The Evening News about ten months ago"

Arthur Machen, Author

"I have always been a writer of letters, and of long ones; so, when I first thought of writing a book in the form of letters, I knew that I could do it quickly and easily"

Laurence Housman, Playwright

"The Voice has always been an alternative paper. They have always understood that that was part of their role"

Sydney Schanberg, Journalist

"I asked him, how could we have a press column if we can't write about other work done in the press?"

Sydney Schanberg, Journalist

"Jigsaw Lady is the working title of a science fiction novel I've had in my head for darn near 15 years. I think I'll start work on it next year (in all my spare time) but I'd like to get it finished some day"

Raymond E. Feist, Author

"Ilike ideas writers have that I might not have written. Writers are there for a reason... To write for me"

Tim Roth, Actor

"Writers are frequently asked why they wrote their first book. A more interesting answer might come from asking them why they wrote their second one"

Len Deighton, Historian

"If there were genders to genres, fiction would be unquestionably feminine"

William Gass, Writer

Page 104 of 130