Writing Quotes - Page 30

Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.

I am an improviser, ... I improvise music. Whatever you want to call it all, it is all improvised music. I may capture it and go back and write it down for others, but it was originally improvised.

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.

I could write historical fiction, or science fiction, or a mystery but since I find it fascinating to research the clues of some little know period and develop a story based on that, I will probably continue to do it.

When I started writing 'A Million Little Pieces,' I felt like it was the right story with the style I had been looking for, and I just kept going.

The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.

Characterization is an accident that flows out of action and dialogue.

People ask me if there are going to be stories of Harry Potter as an adult. Frankly, if I wanted to, I could keep writing stories until Harry is a senior citizen, but I don't know how many people would actually want to read about a 65 year old Harry still at Hogwarts playing bingo with Ron and Hermione.

Write what should not be forgotten.

Happiness writes in white ink on a white page.

You write your life story by the choices you make.

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.

I once asked Barbara Stanwyck the secret of acting. She said: 'Just be truthful - and if you can fake that, you've got it made'.

As a past president of the Writers Guild, I think women shouldn't write for free. Maybe you have to do it for a time, to make a reputation, but I think the idea of giving your work away is the beginning of authors not being able to make a living.

When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I'll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know, I've written a whole song in an hour.

Genius can write on the back of old envelopes but mere talent requires the finest stationery available.

I think it would be cool if you were writing a ransom note on your computer, if the paper clip popped up and said, 'Looks like you're writing a ransom note. Need help? You should use more forceful language, you'll get more money.'

I'm looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.

A bad review is like baking a cake with all the best ingredients and having someone sit on it.

Bob Marley is a huge influence. I love reggae music, but I also love the purpose of the songs he writes and the style of the music - it takes your worries away and makes you feel good, and I think that's what music is about.

If you really want to know about the future, don't ask a technologist, a scientist, a physicist. No! Don't ask somebody who's writing code. No, if you want to know what society's going to be like in 20 years, ask a kindergarten teacher.

And Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher, expressly writes: 'For what is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic Greek.'

Well I don't write, I attempt to scribble here and there. And no, nothing ever so grand as being published.

Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared.