Arts, Media & Entertainment: Writing Quotes

Similar topics:Anime Art Games Movie Music Poetry

"When I was in high school, I read all of Neil Simon's plays"

Darius Rucker, Musician

"So must the writer, whose productions should take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould"

Edmund Waller, Poet

"People recognize certain things, like 'D' means 'this dialogue stinks.' We're dealing with shows that are written here, shot in New York and posted back here. Accurate communication is a necessity"

Dick Wolf, Producer

"Storytelling and elegant style don't always go hand in hand"

Donna Tartt, Novelist

"My novels aren't really generated by a single conceptual spark; it's more a process of many different elements that come together unexpectedly over a long period of time"

Donna Tartt, Novelist

"The daily press, the immediate media, is superb at synecdoche, at giving us a small thing that stands for a much larger thing. Reporters on the ground, embedded or otherwise, can tell us about or send us pictures of what happened in that place at that time among those people"

Bruce Jackson, Public Servant

"Television broadcasts have, in the main, been more suggestive, less specific, more distant in their images than the print press: often you knew that lump was a dead body only because a chattering reporter told you it was"

Bruce Jackson, Public Servant

"My education and background thoroughly inform my writing"

David Brin, Author

"I started writing when I was about thirteen"

Al Purdy, Poet

"I try and write honestly about what I see around me now"

Billy Bragg, Musician

"I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction"

Katherine Anne Porter, Journalist

"Sometimes it's easier to show than it is to tell"

Paula Danziger, Author

"Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world that simply"

Joyce Carol Oates, Novelist

"Thirteen years I took on this last book"

Gay Talese, Journalist

"The reporter wrote with the hope that he would get a by-line in the Times, a testimony to his being alive on that day and all the tomorrows of microfilm"

Gay Talese, Journalist

"At a Boston signing, someone from the audience asked why I was so obsessed with furniture in my books. The question rattled around in my head. I had no idea that I was obsessed with furniture"

Jonathan Carroll, Author

"Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff"

S. E. Hinton, Writer

"There is no essential difference between the material of comedy and tragedy. All depends on the point of view of the dramatist, which, by clever emphasis, he tries to make the point of view of his audience"

George P. Baker, Writer

"The instinct to impersonate produces the actor; the desire to provide pleasure by impersonations produces the playwright; the desire to provide this pleasure with adequate characterization and dialogue memorable in itself produces dramatic literature"

George P. Baker, Writer

"I do not write often now - not for want of something to say, but from a loathing of all I see and hear. Why dwell upon it?"

Mary Chesnut, Author

"None of my characters seem to have had sex yet - I haven't written about that. And I wouldn't want to deal with what's happening in Oregon - the school shootings"

Paula Danziger, Author

"I think any journalist who spends time in a place realizes that there are lots of stories around beyond their primary story. You meet so many interesting people and have all kinds of experiences"

Joe Sacco, Journalist

"Writing is no dying art form in America, because most published writers here accept the wisdom and the necessity of encouraging the talent that follows in their footsteps"

Elizabeth George, Author

"I find it both fascinating and disconcerting when I discover yet another person who believes that writing can't be taught. Frankly, I don't understand this point of view"

Elizabeth George, Author

"Even when I'm writing plays, I enjoy having company, and mentally I think of that company as the company I'm writing for"

Wole Soyinka, Dramatist

"Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth"

Wole Soyinka, Dramatist

"If I had to rank my skills, I have a long way to go before I can write a good graphic novel"

Ted Rall, Cartoonist

"I really have reached a point where I can write a book about all of this"

O. J. Simpson, Athlete

"I go straight from thinking about my narrator to being him"

S. E. Hinton, Writer

"They put it on the page because it sounded good or it looked good or they read it in a book somewhere that this is how you structure a script or something, and they just don't get it. It's surprising"

Macaulay Culkin, Actor

"Just write about what bites you and damn the rest"

Jonathan Carroll, Author

"I write about what interests me. It's very dangerous when you try to satisfy an audience"

Jonathan Carroll, Author

"If you are a novelist of a certain type of temperament, then what you really want to do is re-invent the world. God wasn't too bad a novelist, except he was a Realist"

John Barth, Novelist

"Well, if storytelling is important, then your narrative ability, or your ability to put into words or use what someone else has put into words effectively, is important too"

Howard Gardner, Psychologist

"The story grew, got way bigger than the contest rules called for, and next thing I knew I had a book"

Leslie Banks, Actor

"I have no idea why I write. The old standards are: I like to express my feelings, stretch my imagination, earn money"

S. E. Hinton, Writer

"Music is very influential to my writing, as are theater and film"

Jessica Hagedorn, Playwright

"I write a good amount. I've been gathering up a backlog of stuff and maybe I'll do something with it someday, but I don't want to talk about it just yet because that would jinx it"

Macaulay Culkin, Actor

"My introduction to the Brady book was an attempt to nail the exact same idea since Brady addressed the point. And since I write pornography, naturally something of an obsession for me"

Peter Sotos, Writer

"In the past the publishers I've worked with have been extremely generous, and in almost every case have been people who believed in the work rather than the sales and marketing"

Peter Sotos, Writer

Page 49 of 130