Arts, Media & Entertainment: Writing Quotes

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"A lot of the stories are internal. They leak it to me, wanting to get attention, wanting to get that headline. More times than not, I will not give it to them"

Matt Drudge, Journalist

"If you write, one of the questions you're always trying to answer is, Where do you get your ideas? And, if you write, you know how pointless a question this is and how difficult it is to answer"

Lynn Abbey, Author

"I do have a small collection of traditional SF ideas, which I've never been able to sell. I'm known as a fantasy writer, and neither my agent nor my editors want to risk my brand by jumping genre"

Lynn Abbey, Author

"Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger"

Ben Okri, Poet

"I have a bad tendency to get rapidly bored with my own material, so rewriting is hard for me. I mean, I already know the story and would rather read something new"

Alan Dean Foster, Author

"The only joy I had was writing what was. That book was. It no longer amuses me to be all the things I was when I wrote that. But it is my story as I was then"

Mary MacLane, Writer

"Just why I sent it to the publishers would be hard to say, but when I had finished it I felt that it was literature, because it is real and because it was well written. And I know that the world wants such things"

Mary MacLane, Writer

"Generally I finish a first draft in 2-6 months, then I set it aside for a while so that when I come back to it I can read it with fresh eyes and figure out how to improve it"

Margaret Haddix, Author

"I found the writing arena to be much less competitive"

Phil Hartman, Actor

"The phenomenon of university creative writing programs doesn't exist in France. The whole idea is regarded as a novelty, or an oddity"

Marilyn Hacker, Poet

"I've lost track of the number of people who want to be writers but never actually write anything. Talking about writing, dreaming about writing, can be very fun, but it won't get a book written. You've got to write"

Laurell K. Hamilton, Writer

"I always treated writing as a profession, never as a hobby. If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will"

Laurell K. Hamilton, Writer

"I am my own secretary; I dictate, I compose, I copy all myself"

Venerable Bede, Clergyman

"Moby Dick - that book is so amazing. I just realized that it starts with two characters meeting in bed; that's how my book begins, too, but I hadn't noticed the parallel before, two characters forced to share a bed, reluctantly"

Michael Chabon, Author

"It's good to have it over with. I worked on it a long time, and I didn't know what people were going to think of it. Would people like it? Would they buy it? So far it's been doing pretty well"

Michael Chabon, Author

"I wasn't involved, except to the degree that they sent me drafts of the script as the writer turned them in. They asked me at one point to write a memo about what I thought of it"

Michael Chabon, Author

"As a journalist, the details always tell the story"

James McBride, Writer

"I've always wanted to do a Crichton book. I really love his writing"

Richard Donner, Director

"One can't write without having read - you have to read before beginning to write - and universities offer a very good opportunity to read"

Nathalie Sarraute, Lawyer

"I have often heard that the novel is dead. But I see novels produced, I don't know how many a week, in France. I have the impression it's carrying along quite well"

Nathalie Sarraute, Lawyer

"I have never sought the reason why I write"

Nathalie Sarraute, Lawyer

"I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can't be like any other author's really"

Paul Kane, Writer

"I don't fiddle or edit or change while I'm going through that first draft"

Nora Roberts, Author

"I don't base any character on a real person, and really don't do composites either. I make them up"

Nora Roberts, Author

"The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis"

William Styron, Novelist

"I think people throughout the world identify with my characters"

Sidney Sheldon, Novelist

"It's all about letting the story take over"

Robert Stone, Novelist

"I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations"

Robert Cormier, Author

"That is a secondary teacher conception - the writer as an observer"

Peter Bichsel, Writer

"The writing career is not a romantic one. The writer's life may be colorful, but his work itself is rather drab"

Mary Roberts Rinehart, Novelist

"It's been a long time since I've written old-fashioned sword and sorcery; I'm hoping it's like riding a bicycle"

Lynn Abbey, Author

"I think some of the best modern writing comes now from travellers"

Michael Palin, Comedian

"I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world"

Henry R. Luce, Editor

"How much research I have to do depends on the nature of the story. For fantasy, none at all"

Alan Dean Foster, Author

"I love to run smart essays and commentary. But it doesn't replace the other kind of reporting"

Tina Brown, Editor

"You want the story to end when it's supposed to and not be squeezed for somebody's financial gain"

Lauren Graham, Actress

"The characters do have a life of their own; it's weird"

Julie Walters, Actress

"I think sometimes women who are supposed to be strong are also written as mean and vindictive"

Yancy Butler, Actress

"There's a mystery to writing, and you don't really know where most of it comes from"

Neil Diamond, Musician

"I want to tell stories for everyone, primarily"

Morris Chestnut, Actor

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