Arts, Media & Entertainment: Writing Quotes

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"I hate Shakespeare. I think Shakespeare's rubbish"

Allan Carr, Director

"All my stories were usually titled, 'White House Says,' 'President Bush Wants,' and I relied on transcripts from the briefings. I relied on press releases that were sent to the press for the purpose of accurately portraying what the White House believed or wanted"

Jeff Gannon, Journalist

"I really enjoy doing both, but I didn't write nonfiction until 1994"

Jonathan Franzen, Novelist

"For me, the writing, when I'm going to direct it myself, is really just the first draft, and I don't change it very much; I only change it on average about two lines per movie"

John Sayles, Director

"When I write, the first blank page, or any blank page, means nothing to me. What means something is a page that has been filled with words"

Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Novelist

"When I write, I enjoy myself so much that what is being written really needs no reader"

Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Novelist

"What I do believe is that there is always a relationship between writing and reading, a constant interplay between the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other"

Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Novelist

"I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself"

Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Novelist

"I think all writing is done through memory"

Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Novelist

"The biggest sacrifice to me is to not be in an atmosphere where I can keep writing and moving forward"

Trey Anastasio, Musician

"It was not just that Ross Macdonald taught us how to write; he did something much more: he taught us how to read, and how to think about life, and maybe in some small but mattering way, how to live"

Robert B. Parker, Writer

"If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it"

Robert B. Parker, Writer

"I write five pages a day. If you would read five pages a day, we'd stay right even"

Robert B. Parker, Writer

"'All Our Yesterdays' was unquestionably the best work I have ever done. And the reading public stayed away in droves"

Robert B. Parker, Writer

"Well, you just know, as a writer, I didn't really write one of the five best screenplays of the year. There were lots of brilliant screenplays; I was just one of the lucky ones who got nominated"

Patrick Marber, Writer

"I like them all - I don't always approve. I see myself as a sort of benevolent uncle to these characters, and I can see why they do what they do; sometimes they make some mistakes, but at heart I think they're decent"

Patrick Marber, Writer

"I would teach from nine to four, sleep an hour, and write from six until midnight, night after night"

Marguerite Young, Author

"Some of the greatest writers in our industry can't get work"

Kent McCord, Actor

"What I do not want to write is didactic political tracts"

Joan D. Vinge, Author

"I have always tended toward a lush prose style, but I take care to modulate it from story to story and to strip it down entirely when necessary"

Jeff Vandermeer, Writer

"Film fixes a precise visual image in the viewer's head. In fiction, you just hope you're precise enough to convey the intended effect"

Jeff Vandermeer, Writer

"I sold my first script when I was 21 - this kids' adventure movie that never got made. I just bought that one back, actually. I'm pretty psyched about it"

Jason Segel, Actor

"The journalistic vision sharpens to the point of maximum impact: every event, every individual and social configuration; but the honing is uniform"

George Steiner, Critic

"We see them when they come to New York. They stay at my wife's apartment. We have quite a correspondence with them at all times. They play a very important role, the authors in the firm, because so much of the material we publish is suggested by them"

James Laughlin, Poet

"Every now and then, I strike something that just goes click, you know, in my head. As Gertrude Stein used to say, it rings the bell, and I feel, this is great"

James Laughlin, Poet

"There's a unique bond of trust between readers and authors that I don't believe exists in any other art form; as a reader, I trust a novelist to give me his or her best effort, however flawed"

Dan Simmons, Author

"Storytelling is the important thing"

Vincent Kartheiser, Actor

"The process of creation goes on all the time. When I get through, I feel I know what the character will do in every situation. But the building up of the part is not mechanical or deliberate. It grows out of the text"

Donald Pleasence, Actor

"It seems to me that good novels celebrate the mystery in ordinary life, and summing it all up in psychological terms strips the mystery away"

Anne Tyler, Novelist

"I expect that any day now, I will have said all I have to say; I'll have used up all my characters, and then I'll be free to get on with my real life"

Anne Tyler, Novelist

"I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again"

Anne Tyler, Novelist

"I think the great artists, especially in literature, have always thought with the heart"

Douglas Sirk, Director

"But on the extremist side I didn't get any rejections at all. Everyone agreed to talk to me"

Jon Ronson, Journalist

"I think writers rush in where everybody is very frightened to tread"

Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Novelist

"I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city"

Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Novelist

"I believe that writers, unless they consider themselves terribly exquisite, are at heart people who live by night, a little bit outside society, moving between delinquency and conformity"

Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Novelist

"A very wise author once said that a writer writes for himself, and then publishes for money. I write for myself and publish just for the reader"

Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Novelist

"I could start with Mandelstam, who was a huge influence on my early writing"

Helen Dunmore, Poet

"Writing seems to be more difficult as you move through the years"

George Crumb, Composer

"I didn't know the Green Lantern comics at all. I was a Superman reader"

Geoffrey Rush, Actor

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