I began as a fiction writer - I had written three novels in my 20s and 30s. But as my work has gravitated towards literary nonfiction, or lyric essay or poetic essay, whatever you want to call it, I'm constantly beating my head against the wall 'cause I'm teaching a genre that's no longer that exciting to me and that I'm no longer practicing.
Ever since I've become chairman, there have been profiles of me in People, George, The Washington Post, The Detroit News, and all of them could have been written by the same person.
Make a written list of everything you love.
We have a maxim in the House of Commons, and written on the walls of our houses, that old ways are the safest and surest ways.
The dwarfed trees of the Chinese and Japanese have been noticed by every author who has written upon these countries, and all have attempted to give some description of the method by which the effect is produced.
I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere.
The first drafts of my novels have all been written in longhand, and then I type them up on my old electric. I have resisted getting a computer because I distrust the whole PC thing. I don't think a great book has yet been written on computer.
I have not written a perfect sentence, in the literary sense. It's a lot easier to throw a perfect pass than to write a perfect sentence, if that sentence is meant to perform more than a mechanical function.
I have trusted to my intuition to find the subjects, and I have written intuitively. I have an idea when I start, I have a shape; but I will fully understand what I have written only after some years.
A characteristic of older folksongs, in most cases, is that we don't know their composers or authors. Older folksongs were written often with no commercial purpose in mind. They were passed down by word of mouth, from generation to generation.
Local television news, on both radio and television, is so appalling. Makes print journalism look like the greatest stuff ever written.
'Two Voices,' from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and 'copied it out.'
Everyone has an opinion of who you are and what your relationship is about, things that you've done or didn't do in your relationship - and it's just all crap, really. Things that are written about it are all crap.
Unavoidable circumstances prevent me from giving you ample written instructions. Such however as may be deemed necessary will be prepared and sent to you at the City of Washington in a very few days.
Most films are written and made with a hero around 35, or even 25.
I had written in another draft a completely different kind of fight, but they said they couldn't afford to shoot it. They needed a fight scene, though, so I was told to put a fight scene in, but not the one I had written.
I'm completely dyslexic - it's the writing part. People read what I've written, and they have no idea what I'm trying to say.
A dream doesn't become a goal until it is written.
It is to be regretted that few persons who have arrived at any degree of eminence or fame, have written Memorials of themselves, at least such as have embraced their private as well as their public life.
Wellesley's president, Nannerl Overholser Keohane, approved a broad rule with a specific application: The senior thesis of every Wellesley alumna is available in the college archives for anyone to read - except for those written by either a 'president or first lady of the United States.'
For the most part, romance is written in third person, and it's written in multiple points of view, so you're in the hero's head, and you're in the heroine's head. I've always said that I'm more of a narrator than a creator.
The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.
The program of A.A., as written by Bill Wilson and Dr. Smith, only has one purpose: to get you sober. That's it. To make you a better person, forget it. That was one of the things he came to understand in those years of trial and error. It has to be about only one thing.
I do enjoy Gothic fiction or books about zombies if they are well written and I like vampires.
In The Touch, the love scenes are the same as they were in The Thorn Birds or anything else I've ever written. I find a way of saying that either it was heaven or hell but in a way that still leaves room for the reader to use their own imagination.
Your plays are always personal. You can't help seeing yourself in the serial killer you've just written. But they get less specifically personal.
The first thing I read was of my character on the phone talking to Sydney's fiance. Though short, it was so beautifully written, and it made me laugh. I thought if I wanted to play a character, this would be it.
Lots are written about how 'she shows up at board meetings in the saree.' My God, I have never worn a saree to board meetings; people play it out in different ways. I think I have never shied away from the fact that I am an Indian, and I don't intend to, but you can be at home with both cultures.
You need to recognize that the copyright date on a book reflects when it came out, not when it was written - assume that the information in the book is at least a year older than the copyright date, and possibly two.
The final product in a play is not just the written word. It's the production, the performance. The script is, of course, a very important piece; but it's only one element. Ultimately, yours is one of several voices. People can change your work in a play for better or worse.
I'm blessed with three children who actually aren't terribly impressed with pandering to my ego, and one of my children has a bit of a problem with the sex scenes because when she reads the stuff, she hears my voice in her head, and apparently reading a sex scene written by your mother with her describing it is rather off-putting!
When I write, I enjoy myself so much that what is being written really needs no reader.
When you're working with film, you can only shoot one angle at a time, and then everything has to stop, and you re-light it and shoot everything else from the opposite side, so it's really important that you stick exactly to what's written.
I have ideas written down some places, but usually I can't find them. I'm not very organized.
An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
I'm not an idiot; I try not to look, but I see what people say about me on Facebook. I see other things written. But I don't care.
