Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.
It's much easier to write a solemn book than a funny book. It's harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. People are always on the verge of tears.
I hate writing. I will do anything to avoid it. The only way I could write less was if I was dead.
Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try.
If you feel the urge to write, just lie down and read a book: it will pass.
While clothes with pictures and/or writing on them are not entirely an invention of the modern age, they are an unpleasant indication of the general state of things. ... I mean, be realistic. If people don't want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?
When Toni Morrison said 'write the book you want to read,' she didn't mean everybody.
The best fame is a writer's fame. It's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough to get you interrupted when you eat.
Screenwriting is not an artform, it is a punishment from God.
Contrary to what many of you may imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks - chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write.
In conversation you can use timing, a look, an inflection. But on the page all you have is commas, dashes, the amount of syllables in a word. When I write, I read everything out loud to get the right rhythm.
Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.
All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. It's much more relaxing to actually write.
I write so slowly, I could write with my own blood and not hurt myself.
There is nothing more mine than my writing, nothing I'm more proprietary about.
I have the exact opposite problem of every writer I've ever met: Every writer I've ever met writes things that are too long, and they have to edit them down.
I write a sentence a thousand times, changing it all the time to look at it in different ways.
I have a hard time writing. Most writers have a hard time writing. I have a harder time than most because I'm lazier than most. I don't want to brag, but I'm the laziest person I have ever known.
Whenever I am doing anything else, which is most of the time, even if it is not something like robbing a bank, I feel felonious. Writing is what I'm supposed to be doing.
When I started publishing, I got offers to write for big magazines. But I would always say, "Well, it's not that I don't want to write for these big magazines, but you can't edit it."
Should novels generally be 600 pages? No, they should not. Half of writing, maybe 3/4 of writing, is editing. This seems to be a thing that has not gotten through to them. It's my impression that you could get rid of half of most of these books. These people are not good enough to be this long, but they're apparently also not good enough to be shorter.
Most writers write too much. I have the exact opposite problem. I feel I could write almost anything in a paragraph. I have a natural ability to condense, and so I often think, "Are you kidding me? Five thousand words? How am I gonna make 5,000 words out of that?"
Writers have problems writing sex scenes, because writing one really well is pornography.
There are some great writers who are great talkers, but there are more great writers who are not great talkers. People seem to think there is some connection between talking and writing, but I love to talk and if there were some connection between the two of them I would be the most prolific writer in the history of the world.
I'm not a nervous person. I'm not afraid to be on TV. I'm only afraid when I write. When I'm at my desk I feel like most people would feel if they went on TV.
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