Writing Quotes - Page 268

The process of writing and directing drives you to such extremes that it's natural to feel an affinity with insanity. I approach that madness as something dangerous, and I'm afraid, but also I want to go to it, to see what's there, to embrace it. I don't know why, but I'm drawn.

If the world allows the people of Darfur to be removed forever from their land and their way of life, then genocide will happen elsewhere because it will be seen as something that works. It must not be allowed to work. The people of Darfur need to go home now. I write this for them, and for that day, ... and for those still living who might yet have beautiful lives on the earth.

I start writing when I overcome my disgust with literature.

I write about the things that happen to us all. The things that are tough, the things that matter, from a loved one fighting an illness, to losing a job, being betrayed by somebody you trust, all parts of the human condition. No one is exempt from those things.

Fans are really important for me. And if they take pains to write me, it's the minimum that I answer myself.

I don't think there's anything that I would really baulk at doing on-screen. I don't think so. I've got certain pet peeves about writing... my pet peeve about reading scripts is when they give you a line reading and there'll be a line but next to your character's name it'll say 'very angry'. But I'm like: "Well, I'll decide that actually!" So, there's little things like that. That's a slight pet peeve.

I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early.

In fact, merely writing the facts on a piece of paper and stating our problem clearly goes a long way toward helping us to reach a sensible decision.

The worst thing that ever happened to writing is that it became a business, The purpose of business is to make money, and to achieve that end it is necessary to please as many people as possible, to amuse them, to entertain them - in short, to do everything that will help increase the volume of sales.

It is much more fun to write about villains then heroes. The villains are the ones that think out the scheme, and the heroes just kind of come along for the ride.

You can't say, I won't write today because that excuse will extend into several days, then several months, then... you are not a writer anymore, just someone who dreams about being a writer.

How many books did Renoir write on how to paint?

There is a master way with words that cannot be learned but instead developed: a deaf man develops exceptional vision, a blind man exceptional hearing, a silent man, when given a piece of paper.

I never took drug to escape. I know some people take drugs to escape, but I took drugs because I was an experimenter. And an artist. And I was always trying to go to the other side of that veil and get information, like all writers have done through the millennia. To get some insights on how the whole thing works, if there's any way to know how it works, and write about it.

I write songs for myself, songs come out of me, I get enjoyment out of it. Basically, that's it - I get enjoyment out of my songs, I know they're good songs, and know that the people around me who I respect are all getting up on these tunes, and the feedback is really good, so that's it. There are people who will receive them, and don't receive them. Not in a spiritual sense, but in a commercial sense - do these songs treat people, and so far they're working.

Writing is a solitary pursuit and I think you have to be partially at peace with yourself, but it's the other part that's usually producing the stuff worth reading.

It was on this day that the Bahamas declared independence. Before that they were a British colony. The British Empire lost Canada and the Bahamas, to name just a couple. Britain's been dumped more times than Taylor Swift. But did they go writing whining songs about it? No.

What I love about drafts is the experimental nature of them. The draft is what you know about writing a poem running up against what you don't know about the subject. If you're lucky, you get to surprise yourself.

You know how it is with writing. You just write what you want to write. There's no way to predict what is good or bad. You just do what you think is funny, and either it works or you're finished. It's impossible to predict anything.

Usually the things that happen in my life are an easy trigger for songwriting.

Nothing ever begins. There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.

Every once and a while somebody writes a script, but even regardless of what age you are, most of the actors would all agree that it's all based upon material and the material has got to spark with you. It may be great material but you think it's great material for somebody else. Or it's great material and I'm perfect for it. So, you just have to make that judgment and if you feel in the mood to do it.

To be on the safe and humane side, let every relative and friend ... remember the golden rule, which has never been suspended with respect to the insane. Go to see them, treat them sanely, write to them, keep them informed about the home circle; let not your devotion flag, nor accept any repulse.

I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.

Wine buffs write and talk as though the food and wine will be in your mouth at the same time, that one is there to be poured over the other. This is bullshit. Gustatory enjoyment comes from food and wine and cigars of your liking. So far no one has said that a Monte Cristo is the only cigar to smoke after Armagnac, Romeo and Juliet after Calvados ... but the time may yet come.