It’s not how big your pencil is; it’s how you write your name.
It’s easier to write about Socrates than about a young woman or a cook.
I write in a diary every night to collect my thoughts. It’s very therapeutic to songwrite, because it’s the same thing.
I wish one time in my life I could do what other writers do… get me a villa in Spain and go there to write a book.
I don’t write beautifully – I just write reports about our condition.
Most ideas remain inside you for a while. You tell somebody when there is a spark or a thought, and leave it at that. You come back later, write down a few lines. I makes note in my mind on whether it can be made into a film or not.
I was about to walk on stage at the Kansas Speedway – I was playing a NASCAR race – and I said to Scooter Carusoe, who was standing side stage, ‘I want to write a song called ‘Wanna Be That Song.’ Then I put my earphones back in and walked right out on stage.
Maybe I should write ‘Tiger Who?’ on my cap.
It’s disheartening to write goals from year to year, looking back only to see you are in the same place. You can make so many promises that you get sick of yourself, but what is it that God can’t do?
What can a pencil do for all of us? Amazing things. It can write transcendent poetry, uplifting music, or life-changing equations; it can sketch the future, give life to untold beauty, and communicate the full-force of our love and aspirations.
Life doesn’t just happen. You happen to life. You decide how you want to write your story.
Don’t weep for me; don’t write any sob stories.
I write fiction and I’m told it’s autobiography, I write autobiography and I’m told it’s fiction, so since I’m so dim and they’re so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn’t.
If you’re going to write about rap music and hip-hop, and you don’t love it, then we don’t need your opinion, and we revoke your opinion.
We write about ourselves because we know about ourselves.
For businesses, biomimicry is about bringing a new discipline – biology – to the design table. It’s not to write an environmental impact statement, as most biologists in business do right now.
I always write things that entertain me, and one of the things that I find really enjoyable to explore is the idea of love. I like looking at my own life and my friends and family and how love changes who you are. It fascinates me.
If you continually write and read yourself as a fiction, you can change what’s crushing you.
Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.
All my films are statements, especially when I write them.
Tolkien was quite a religious man, and so is George R.R. Martin. They kind of have this epic quality about them when they write the material.
I could not write about ‘ordinary people’ because I am not in the least interested in them.
Although I write screenplays, I don’t think I’m a very good writer.
I just freestyle. I don’t actually write the words on paper. It’s just whatever comes into my mind. I’ll record three or four lines at a time, get a good take, and do three or four more. It may be whatever comes into my mind. But I care about my craft a lot more than a lot of other people.
I’m not sure I could write a straight urban fantasy any more than I could write a straight contemporary story. I would end up being intimidated by all the small details.
If you make your living writing, and you can’t write anything, it’s over. It’s very frightening.
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.
I know some people might think it odd – unworthy even – for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people’s poet so I write for the people.
People imagine that there are rituals, like lighting candles or sacrificing chickens. They really just want to know what the magic formula is for writing. I inevitably disappoint them by saying you just put your butt in the chair, and you write 500 words a day, and then you get up and repeat it the next morning.
Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there.
When you write a story, it just flows and you don’t control it. It’s subconscious.
There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate – not to the artist, but to the public, blinding them to all but harming the artist not at all.
Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.
You have to write a good score that you feel good about. At least, you’re supposed to. But, if the director hates it, it ain’t going to be in the movie!
When I write songs, when I sing songs, I don’t have anybody in mind. I’m just trying to express what I think people are feeling.
I think there is only one way to write fiction – alone, in a room, without interruption or any distraction.
My friend Akshay Upadhyay and I used to write poetry and read out to each other.
The truth is, it’s easier for me to write than talk… to express the state I’m in at any time.
Anything that keeps you happy and writing is part of my writing ritual: I like music, so I tend to have it playing in the background. But if I’m interested, I can write in an airport waiting areas.
You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.
I don’t set out to write something. I more just write, and later on, I discover what it’s about.
We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them.
I want to write. I want to direct. I want to produce – I want to inhabit what I think it means to fully be an artist.
I don’t think you can tell the objective truth about a person. That’s why people write novels.
I think, after ‘Let Her Go,’ I wanted to show people that I don’t just write really sad love songs about my ex-girlfriend: that there’s another side to Passenger as well that’s a bit more up-tempo and more inclined to social commentary.
It’s a weird thing. Rick Springfield wrote ‘Jessie’s Girl,’ and he probably gets sick of talking about ‘Jessie’s Girl.’ The thing is, I didn’t write ‘Blurred Lines.’ I didn’t direct the music video. I’m really happy for the success, but it is kind of a funny thing to follow me around.
I adopted a motto: Never say no. Jim Morrison never said no, Kurt Cobain never said no. You couldn’t have great things to write about if all you did was sit in your living room with your roommates talking about the phone bill.
A writer doesn’t write about just anything. He writes about things he has an affinity for.
The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible.
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
I’ve been writing a lot of sad songs, and I got to the point where I was like, ‘You can’t write another one or you’re lying.’
What a book a devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!
A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.
I hate government. I’m apolitical. Write that down. I’m not a Republican.
I don’t have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again.
The subjects I wanted to write about – the mystery of the human soul, evil – didn’t interest newspapers, and news reporting bored me.
I don’t think that women necessarily always write like women. I was a writer on the ‘Comedy Central Roasts’ for a while, and I always wrote the jokes that people assumed the men would write.
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.
When I write, I can shake off all my cares.
Starting a new job can be nerve-racking , but it’s also exciting. You’re embarking on a new future, positioning yourself to write a fresh story on a clean slate.
My art and my creativities were totally something that was of my own heart and mind. I could never let anybody dictate to me what I should write and how I would write it.
If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire must be not to write.
A man who wants time to read and write must let the grass grow long.
We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
Sometimes, I write ’60s or ’80s style pop songs.
I’m probably only going to make 10 movies, so I’m already planning on what I’m going to do after that. That’s why I’m counting them. I have two more left. I want to stop at a certain point. What I want to do, basically, is I want to write novels, and I want to write theatre, and I want to direct theatre.
If you write a book about a bygone period that lies east of the Mississippi River, then it’s a historical novel. If it’s west of the Mississippi, it’s a western, a different category. There’s no sense to it.
