Arts, Media & Entertainment: Writing Quotes

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"I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of"

Dashiell Hammett, Author

"I've tried writing. Two days later I'd go visit it and say, Jesus Christ, who wrote this crap?"

Dennis Farina, Actor

"The process of rewriting is enjoyable, because you're not in that existential panic when you don't have a novel at all"

Rose Tremain, Novelist

"Perhaps all writers walk such a line. In general - as we all do in our dreams - I believe I put something of myself into all the characters in my novels, male as well as female"

Rose Tremain, Novelist

"I think I'm drawn to writing about something which feels intense and important"

Rose Tremain, Novelist

"At the moment, I'm toying with a new idea for a book, but fully engaged with writing screenplays, so the book idea - which needs empty space in my head - is barely formed yet"

Rose Tremain, Novelist

"Now, after 18 years, not a sign of Lovecraft in my work"

Brian Lumley, Writer

"I really believe that a writer is someone who has trained their mind to misbehave"

Brad Thor, Novelist

"I like books that have razor-sharp plotting that snaps and moves along. It's not about the main character being different at the end. I don't want my main character to be different in the end. I still want him committed to his ideas, to be steadfast, true, and loyal"

Brad Thor, Novelist

"Good stories flow like honey. Bad stories stick in the craw. A bad story? One that cannot be absorbed on the first time of reading"

Arthur Christiansen, Journalist

"All that non-fiction can do is answer questions. It's fiction's business to ask them"

Richard Hughes, Writer

"There was a lot of great writing couples, but I try to do it all myself. And it was practically impossible, but I still managed to be ahead of my time"

Jackie DeShannon, Musician

"Some writers hate to go to trials, but I love trials"

Ann Rule, Writer

"I'll bet Shakespeare compromised himself a lot; anybody who's in the entertainment industry does to some extent"

Christopher Isherwood, Author

"I thought writing about somebody current would be a little closer to what I'm used to doing"

Adam Clymer, Journalist

"I never really saw myself as writing science fiction anyway"

Nigel Kneale, Writer

"Characters can be mysterious and you're not really sure which way they might turn at a given point"

Michael Zaslow, Actor

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts"

William Strunk, Jr., Writer

"Journalism as theater is what TV news is"

Thomas Griffith, Editor

"I wanted to connect a modern story with a myth that I had read"

Wally Lamb, Author

"I think I write fiction for the opportunity to get beyond the limits of my own life"

Wally Lamb, Author

"I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned"

Wally Lamb, Author

"Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, locates importance and, though its methods are as mysterious as they are varied, intensifies the experience of living our own lives"

Vincent Canby, Critic

"It is the creator of fiction's point of view; it is the character who interests him. Sometimes he wants to convince the reader that the story he is telling is as interesting as universal history"

Raymond Queneau, Poet

"Books fall from Garry Wills like leaves from a maple tree in a sort of permanent October"

John Leonard, Poet

"There are some people who believe that these are not real stories with real people, but they actually are"

Samantha Bee, Comedian

"I'm a big fan of editing and keeping only the interesting bits in"

Sarah Vowell, Author

"I discovered that Robert Todd Lincoln was there for each of the first three assassinations. I wanted to write about the Lincoln Memorial, so when I found out he had attended its dedication, that helped focus it further"

Sarah Vowell, Author

"I'm always amazed by writers who tell me they plan everything at the beginning. I feel their writing days must be very bland"

Rose Tremain, Novelist

"I've seen some great write ups and I emailed her the other night because I saw her on an awards show recently"

Nia Long, Actress

"I wanted to just do a one-act play for 26 minutes, with commercials at the beginning and end. For years, I couldn't get my way. They wanted to interrupt three times"

Norman Lear, Producer

"I write in American slang"

Norman Spinrad, Author

"The Odyssey is the story of Americans up to the point where they are well-established, and even so, it is detached from the historical side"

Raymond Queneau, Poet

"A very great Iliad... concerns the creation of a nation"

Raymond Queneau, Poet

"Focus in on the genre you want to write, and read books in that genre. A LOT of books by a variety of authors. And read with questions in your mind"

Nicholas Sparks, Author

"If writers learn more from their books than do readers, perhaps I may have begun to learn"

Lloyd Alexander, Writer

"Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony"

Lionel Trilling, Critic

"To judge, therefore, of Shakespeare by Aristotle's rule, is like trying a man by the laws of one country who acted under those of another"

Elizabeth Montagu, Writer

"Not far from our house, and opposite the old church with the golden cross, stood a large building, even larger than the church, and having many towers"

Max Muller, Educator

"And people do enjoy the plays at completely different levels. And, likewise, they enjoy the authorship question... at completely different levels"

Mark Rylance, Actor

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