Writing Quotes

Well - I started writing - probably in the early 60s and by say '65-'66 I had read most of the poetry that had been published - certainly in the 20 years prior to that.

Somebody's always getting me to come lecture to their writing class, and I don't talk about writing at all, I talk about the business of making a living at this racket.

I've hung out in the writer's room a few times, but the fact is we've got such a good writing staff, I don't want to get my peanut butter fingerprints on anything.

Writing is a communication.

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.

It's a dismally lonely business, writing.

Sometimes you're trapped in writing songs and you don't have enough distance from what you do anymore and you need the talent and the years of other people to come and jump in.

You learn a lot, writing fiction.

I started writing movie scripts. They excited me a lot, but I didn't like them when they were finished because they were simple copies of the films I saw in childhood.

I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry.

I think there are some songwriters who are just brilliant who can write and then I think there are some songwriters who can like me I have a problem writing chorus lyrics but I can write a song in a story like that.

I like writing for children. It seems to me that most people underestimate their understanding and the strength of their feelings and in my books for them I try to put this right.

I approach writing female characters the same why I approach writing male characters. I never think I'm writing about women, I think I'm writing about one woman, one person. And I try to imagine what she is like, and endow her with a lot of my own thoughts and history.

Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.

The way I outline has changed quite a bit from when I first started writing.

I want to be as honest as I can about the things I've been through - the sorrows and joys, victories and defeats - and to use those experiences as a well to draw from. Hopefully, the songs that result from that kind of writing will be songs that mean something to others.

Good writing gives energy, whatever it is about.

It has gone past me now, the writing phase.

There's a certain point, when you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest.

For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.

I love writing songs. I'm a songwriter.

For the last 20 years of my life, I've had the mantra to do amazing parts with amazing people in amazing projects, so I'm attracted to good story, writing and character and good people. That's what I'm always searching for and I don't think that's ever going to change.

Once you are a proper, serious law-maker, you can't break the laws you're writing.

I think the kind of unexpected I really love is when you open books and the actual way of writing is different and interesting. Like reading Virginia Woolf for the first time or Lawrence Durrell for the first time.

Writing is a difficult thing.

Well, Peter has a writing style, but again, time changes subject matters and attitudes.

The essays are very solipsistic and self-absorbed, I'm totally conscious of that. To me, book writing is fun, and I basically just write about things that are entertaining to myself.

I busted out of the place in a hurry and went to a saloon and drank beer and said that for the rest of my life I'd never take a job in a place where you couldn't throw cigarette butts on the floor. I was hooked on this writing for newspapers and magazines.

When I started writing full time I had not long stopped being a teacher and when at last I had a full day to write, I would put music on and wonder to myself - am I allowed to do this? Then I thought: 'I am control of this and no one is telling me what I can do.'

I'm writing a novel about two actresses who go to New York, because that's what I know about. One has lost touch with reality, disappears and is picked up by a man.