Arts, Media & Entertainment: Writing Quotes

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"In the beginning, we had a great deal of freedom, and Jerry wrote completely out of his imagination - very, very freely. We even had no editorial supervision to speak of, because they were in such a rush to get the thing in before deadline. But later on we were restricted"

Joe Shuster, Artist

"The reactions haven't differed; the concerns have been different. When I read for a predominantly Indian audience, there are more questions that are based on issues of identity and representation"

Jhumpa Lahiri, Author

"Cultivating literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and driving, when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble vehicle, the 'bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional opportunities for observing their mutual position and behaviour; and it is very peculiar"

James Payn, Novelist

"I remember being awed by it - the uniqueness and nicety of style - and I suspect I was a bit jealous because we were more or less of the same generation"

George Plimpton, Journalist

"Of course, I also gave him the ineffable pleasures of pipe smoking. And no children, because when this character was created I did not yet have the four children I later had. I must add I also gave him a certain taste for food"

Georges Simenon, Writer

"I'm more interested in writing than in performing"

Frank McCourt, Author

"A probing analysis of the problems of evolution forms the basis of my prose"

Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, Author

"I've been working on this feature script for Master Class, a play by Terrence McNally that won a lot of Tonys"

Faye Dunaway, Actress

"But in fantasy, you can make a complete break, and you can put people in a situation where they are confronted with things that they would not confront in the real world"

Elizabeth Moon, Author

"To come up with the ending to a story and then work backwards is like tying your shoe with one hand only"

Donald McKay, Designer

"My first novel took 12 years to complete because life got in my way"

Donald McKay, Designer

"I write when the urge hits me, getting the words down as fast as I can type, and then I step back from what I just wrote, and start a dialectical process where I begin challenging my own writing"

Donald McKay, Designer

"If the general opinion is pessimistic, fantasy is going to hold its own"

David Eddings, Author

"The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about 17 was C.S. Lewis"

Tanith Lee, Writer

"I think of myself as a storyteller, and that is it"

Tanith Lee, Writer

"I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault"

Tanith Lee, Writer

"It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience"

Robert Morgan, Soldier

"Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places"

Robert Morgan, Soldier

"During the session of the Supreme Court, in the village of -, about three weeks ago, when a number of people were collected in the principal street of the village, I observed a young man riding up and down the street, as I supposed, in a violent passion"

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Lawyer

"I want to make a summing up, brief and to the point, but thorough. I have never suppressed a word in my books out of regard for other people and their prejudices"

John Henry Mackay, Writer

"I've always liked new writing"

Imelda Staunton, Actress

"Being rewarded for anything other than the quality of their work is the fastest way to screw-up a writer-and it isn't only new ones who suffer from that"

Greg Egan, Scientist

"The Berserkers have been with me for about forty years, and we're not done yet"

Fred Saberhagen, Author

"Mysteries I read for fun, so I will probably never write one, for fear of spoiling the fun"

Fred Saberhagen, Author

"At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it"

Fred Saberhagen, Author

"When you use words, you're able to keep your mind alive. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence"

Gao Xingjian, Novelist

"The title always comes last. What I really work hard on is the beginning. Where do you begin? In what tone do you begin? I almost have to have a scene in my mind"

David McCullough, Historian

"No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read"

David McCullough, Historian

"I think one of things is that all fantasy, it seems to me, works the way your brain basically works. This is perhaps a startling concept, but I think it's true"

Diana Wynne Jones, Writer

"Fantasy for me as a kid was real, and I had a fantasy about what life was, whether it was sort of wicked and dire, or wholly normal, or whatever. Anything really close to home is not, it seems to me, what a good book should be about"

Diana Wynne Jones, Writer

"The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part"

Jeffery Deaver, Writer

"The best way to learn about writing is to study the work of other writers you admire"

Jeffery Deaver, Writer

"I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose"

Jeffery Deaver, Writer

"Jerry picked up the technique of visualizing the story as a movie scenario, and whenever he gave me a script, I would see it as a screenplay. That was the technique that Jerry used, and I just picked it up"

Joe Shuster, Artist

"When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough"

Jhumpa Lahiri, Author

"I would not send a first story anywhere. I would give myself time to write a number of stories"

Jhumpa Lahiri, Author

"He told me he was working as an interpreter in a doctor's office in Brookline, Massachusetts, where I was living at the time, and he was translating for a doctor who had a number of Russian patients. On my way home, after running into him, I just heard this phrase in my head"

Jhumpa Lahiri, Author

"Words are the basic tools if you are a writer"

James Houston, Artist

"But he knew people and he was head writer for Have Gun Will Travel, and if you took those early Star Treks that we did and put us in a western wardrobe and put us on wagon train going west, we can say the same lines"

Majel Barrett, Actress

"Writers seem to me to be people who need to retire from social life and do a lot of thinking about what's happened - almost to calm themselves"

Helen Garner, Novelist

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