Arts, Media & Entertainment: Writing Quotes

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"I was pretty dead set against ever writing an academic novel. It's always been my view that there are already more than enough academic novels and that most of them aren't any good. Most of them are self-conscious and bitter, the work of people who want to settle grudges"

Richard Russo, Novelist

"One of the hardest things to believe is that anyone will abandon the effort to escape a charge of murder. It is extremely important to suspend disbelief on that. If you don't, the story is spoiled"

Rex Stout, Writer

"I think J.D. Salinger is correct in granting no interviews, and in making no speeches"

Patricia Highsmith, Novelist

"In France, for instance, one magazine writer was convinced that On The Road had been a huge influence on Lost Souls and was crushed to learn that I hadn't read the one until after I'd written the other"

Poppy Z. Brite, Author

"I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art"

Anne Stevenson, Poet

"Actually, my correspondent's language is better than mine. He can put his sentiment into words"

Alfred Day Hershey, Scientist

"Everybody writes a book too many"

Mordecai Richler, Novelist

"Bantam Press. And they commissioned me to write it. And when that was completed, they sold it to Harper and Row. And then I put it out to every movie studio in town. And they all turned it down"

William Peter Blatty, Writer

"I'd sold the book first. Actually to a paperback publisher. I had nothing. I just had the idea"

William Peter Blatty, Writer

"Horror does not interest me, and so I know little of its practicioners, old or current"

William Peter Blatty, Writer

"I must have done everything I had. You go through years where you go through everything you've ever written"

Todd Barry, Comedian

"Any biographer must of necessity become a pilgrim, a peripatetic, obsessed literary pilgrim, a traveler with four eyes"

Leon Edel, Critic

"So usually even if you like a sentence or a story or something, it won't come out that way - it'll come out years later, and in a different way, and you don't really control that"

Keren Ann, Musician

"How many times can you put together 26 different stories without running out?"

Rene Auberjonois, Actor

"The elasticity of Shakespeare is extraordinary"

Kenneth Branagh, Actor

"Will this new play be good or bad? Nothing else matters. Nothing at all"

Terence Rattigan, Dramatist

"Surely the whole point of writing your own life story is to be as honest as you possibly can, revealing everything about yourself that is most private and probably most interesting for that very reason"

Judith Krantz, Novelist

"One of the problems of writing is that anyone who commits themselves to that process has to believe that they're good"

Steven Bochco, Producer

"Being a good television screenwriter requires an understanding of the way film accelerates the communication of words"

Steven Bochco, Producer

"Unlike metaphor, metonymy does not try to fuse images together"

Thomas Harrison, Writer

"You know what you are best at, and writing is just not my thing, but I like it"

Sara Gilbert, Actress

"The mainstream press and television do a very soft job of covering the press, either as corporate entities or as news organizations"

Sydney Schanberg, Journalist

"Sometimes a serendipitous reaction occurs when a network asks you if you have any ideas for a series, at a time when your creative flow is working in that direction"

Joe Murray, Artist

"I am constantly getting letters from inconsistancies in the back stories of these characters"

Joe Murray, Artist

"I always serve the writer first because I'm English trained, even though I'm American"

Robert Englund, Actor

"In the end, my reasons for moving down the timeline and introducing a new cast have more to do with keeping myself entertained, on the assumption that if I get bored, my readers are going to be even more bored"

Raymond E. Feist, Author

"Always expect the unexpected. Right around Thanksgiving, when the new Alex Cross will be out, it's called Four Blind Mice and it's a pretty amazing story about several murders inside the military"

James Patterson, Author

"My only requirement for that first story was that there had to be a fight or an explosion on every page. Naturally, no one wanted to publish it, but I liked the character, did a few stories to keep my hand in"

Phil Foglio, Cartoonist

"I've been writing a lot, I've a few projects I'm trying to finance, I do some acting, I do some directing... Apart from that, if I could get lower that a ten handicap on my golf game I'd be thrilled"

Paul M. Glaser, Actor

"Writers never get a very good deal in Hollywood"

Richard O'Brien, Actor

"I absolutely adore working in the realms of fantasy"

Richard O'Brien, Actor

"Also, it's risky to try to duplicate earlier success. Magician had a certain charm to it, mostly due to my choice of lead characters, that I would be hard put to duplicate"

Raymond E. Feist, Author

"Before you approach a production entity or even a potential producer, you should write up a treatment and register your show with the Writers Guild of America"

Penelope Spheeris, Director

"With this first novel, I am just above the foothills, but I see the path to the top, and it is my desire to write compelling stories about everything that I find of interest"

Guy Johnson, Writer

"Then I thought I was going to be a photographer. I tried a hand at darkroom technician. I played in a band. It took me quite some time to discover that I wanted to write"

Guy Johnson, Writer

"It is my desire to be a great writer. I know that I still have a mountain to climb to achieve that"

Guy Johnson, Writer

"The way I outline has changed quite a bit from when I first started writing"

George Stephen, Businessman

"The benefit of this kind of outlining is that you discover a story's flaws before you invest a lot of time writing the first draft, and it's almost impossible to get stuck at a difficult chapter, because you've already done the work to push through those kinds of blocks"

George Stephen, Businessman

"Many of my short stories (all unpublished) were horror, and the novel I'd just finished was horror, too"

George Stephen, Businessman

"We were given clear, concrete tools. The course did a great job demystifying the art of fiction writing and fostering confidence. The instructor brought complex concepts down to earth. I will miss coming here every week"

Miguel Ferrer, Actor

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