Writing Quotes - Page 136

I write letters to my right brain all the time. They're just little notes. And right brain, who likes to get little notes from me, will often come through within a day or two.

I write the music, produce it and the band plays within the parameters that I set.

I have a paper cut from writing my suicide note. It's a start.

A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness... The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration... a focusing of the attention in a special way.

Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.

There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line. It's tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don't think conceptually while I work on a first draft -- I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.

If the stuff you're writing is not for yourself, it won't work.

A mission statement is not something you write overnight... But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life.

My music is so often like a lullaby I write to myself to make sense of things I can't tie together, or things I've lost, or things I'll never have.

I want to write poems that are natural, luminous, deep, spare. I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world.

One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film.

I think the cardinal rule of learning to write is learning to read first. I learned to write by learning to read.

I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian - that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing Y.A.

Whatever I'm doing, I try to write well. I try to give the reader a nice, clean well-written surface, where the writing is transparent. It probably takes me longer to write things, but it's very important to me that the writing itself be good.

Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.

Writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.

I'd sell one of my songs for any car commercial in the world that paid enough money. But to stay in the Top Ten for weeks on end when I'm in my forties by letting Glen Ballard write songs for me? F**k that.

I have always thought of poetry as an act of celebration. Just by nature of writing a poem you are taking the time to dwell on whatever it is that you're writing about...you can be celebrating anger, you can be celebrating sorrow... you are spending the time to focus and observe and try to understand the various parts of being human.

Being a writer is so great because you're literally not dependent on anybody. Whereas, as an actor, you have to audition or wait for somebody else to make a decision about how to use you, with writing, you can do it anywhere, anytime you want. You don't have to ask permission.

There is a great quote from a female writer. She said, 'If you don't break out in a sweat of fear when you write, you are not writing well enough. I tend to agree. I think my best pictures come when I push myself.

If you want to say something profound, writing from your heartbeat is different than writing from the loud voices you get from music. If they're rapping from noise, it's about robbing people. It's that simple.

I am always writing; if you want to survive in this business, you need to keep working, keep creating and never stop the output.

Just write and love what you're writing. And if you're not loving what you're writing, take a look at why and fix that.

The discourse on the Text should itself be nothing other than text, research, textual activity, since the Text is that social space which leaves no language safe, outside, nor any subject of the enunciation in position as judge, master, analyst, confessor, decoder. The theory of the Text can coincide only with a practice of writing.

When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They're moved by a desire to touch the audience.