Arts, Media & Entertainment: Writing Quotes

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"They may well say not only is this not true, but I will put in an injunction to prevent publication. No, stories don't go in unless I'm convinced by the people who write them that they're true. And if I'm wrong, then so be it"

Ian Hislop, Editor

"Nobody from the administration has officially rejected my column"

Bob Novak, Entertainer

"You never write down to the people - you write the best you can with the hope that someone else will feel the same way"

William Kraft, Musician

"Jerry and I hoped that it would be a popular bestseller"

Tim LaHaye, Clergyman

"Acting and writing go together. Actors write because they love words and becoming other people - we love to escape into other characters"

Susannah York, Actress

"Writing is very much a playground - an artistic playground. It's the most fun thing I do"

Shania Twain, Musician

"Shakespeare is the one who gets re-interpreted most frequently"

Sam Waterston, Actor

"You can't tell any kind of a story without having some kind of a theme, something to say between the lines"

Robert Wise, Producer

"Cut quarrels out of literature, and you will have very little history or drama or fiction or epic poetry left"

Robert Staughton Lynd, Sociologist

"That helped me to keep in touch with myself and to keep in touch with this really quite extraordinary language and literature into which I had pushed a little way"

Robert Fitzgerald, Author

"In fact, eloquence in English will inevitably make use of the Latin element in our vocabulary"

Robert Fitzgerald, Author

"I will say that Rick will probably die before the end of the book. I'll go ahead and put that in print. Nobody's safe. I've almost killed him three times already"

Robert Kirkman, Writer

"If people have bought something of mine, they know by now that I will decline writing it for the movies"

Patricia Highsmith, Novelist

"Well, it's a humor strip, so my first responsibility has always been to entertain the reader... But if, in addition, I can help move readers to thought and judgment about issues that concern me, so much the better"

Garry Trudeau, Cartoonist

"I write plays for people who wouldn't be seen dead in the theatre"

Barrie Keeffe, Dramatist

"Everybody has to write out of rage sometimes"

Amy Clampitt, Poet

"Ever since my youth, it has disturbed me that, of the literary works that survived their own epoch, so many dealt with historical rather than contemporary subjects"

Lion Feuchtwanger, Novelist

"An author who sets about to depict events of the past that have run their course is suspected of wishing to avoid the problems of the present day, of being, in other words, a reactionary"

Lion Feuchtwanger, Novelist

"After closely examining my conscience, I venture to state that in my historical novels I intended the content to be just as modern and up-to-date as in the contemporary ones"

Lion Feuchtwanger, Novelist

"Be kind and considerate with your criticism... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book"

Malcolm Cowley, Critic

"It was a world that I wanted to record because it was such a miracle visitation to me"

Laurie Lee, Poet

"Quite casually I wander into my plot, poke around with my characters for a while, then amble off, leaving no moral proved and no reader improved"

Thorne Smith, Writer

"The biographies and autobiographies are on the whole more impressive than the fiction of the last two decades, but the freakish best sellers among them are least likely to withstand the test of time"

Harold Acton, Historian

"The elegance and the quality - the talent is always in the literature. I start with the word and I base everything on that. It doesn't make any difference to me"

Kate Mulgrew, Actress

"When I first concluded to print the book, I made an honest effort to construct it in the third person"

John Sergeant Wise, Author

"But after that, I was extremely happy with the story and the look of the show at the beginning of season two - everything was working together. I felt like it was finished conceptually"

Joel Hodgson, Entertainer

"I usually start with a repulsive character and go on from there"

Chester Gould, Cartoonist

"When I write, I am not giving a lecture, I am speculating on behavior. Sometimes this is dangerous, but it should be. As I say often, theatre is a dark place, and we should keep the light out of it"

Howard Barker, Playwright

"We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, the theatre is beautiful because it is a secret, and secrets seduce us, we all want to share secrets"

Howard Barker, Playwright

"I am so far as I am aware, not at all influenced by dramatists, expect for Shakespeare, who I have to say, it is impossible not to be influenced by, if you hold language to be the major element of theatre"

Howard Barker, Playwright

"The turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought, if really want to write, it's time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day, and I figured, I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book"

James Rollins, Author

"I'm pretty disciplined to keep the momentum of a story going by writing everyday, even if it's only a couple paragraphs or a page or two"

James Rollins, Author

"I don't actually have a one wellspring of inspiration. Though I'm most often inspired while reading - both fiction and nonfiction. I subscribe to National Geographic, Scientific American, Discover, and a slew of other magazines. And it is while reading articles for pleasure and interest that an interesting 'What if?' will pop into my head"

James Rollins, Author

"For some reason, some of my best solutions and ideas are triggered in those dark theaters, usually totally unrelated to what's going on onscreen. I also enjoy hiking in the foothills and mountains close to Sacramento. I always have to bring a pen and paper to jot down sudden thoughts and ideas. So inspiration arises from countless sources"

James Rollins, Author

"I therefore set to work, and after two and a half years of not inconsiderable labour I now have the privilege and the satisfaction of accompanying the early volumes of the series with this preface"

James Loeb, Businessman

"Although this is a fictitious story, the history is real. You don't want to re-write history but you certainly want to portray events and characters as realistically as you can"

James D'arcy, Actor

"What I said about John was that he liberated me from my anxieties about writing in a correct, acceptable way"

Harry Mathews, Author

"It has always been something I could do, and it may seem odd that in my case I seem to create an interesting narrative and frustrate the reader's opportunities to follow it at every step"

Harry Mathews, Author

"The secret of it is to read what you've got in front of you. Don't, if you suspect that something has a double meaning, don't pause. Don't put on a leery vocal expression if you know what I mean on radio. Don't sort of do anything other than read it"

Humphrey Lyttelton, Musician

"When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day"

Alberto Moravia, Novelist

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