I've been at this for 40 years. And, as an academic, I've been content with relatively small audiences, with the thought that the audience I long for will find its way eventually to what I have written, provided that what I have written is good enough.
I find old copies of National Gallery catalogues, which are written in the dryest possible prose, infinitely soothing.
I always work only with friends, but it must be about them and myself. Because I film only very personal moments, nothing preplanned, staged or written, it has to be real and spontaneous. Some of them have become famous, some are not yet famous, some will never be famous. But they are all my friends.
Democratic politicians have disliked things I've written, Republican politicians... if they all love you, you might as well be driving a Good Humor truck.
In all the poems I've written I've not really engaged in politics, and when I've found myself moving in that direction I've always stopped myself.
You can't believe anything that's written in an historical novel, and yet the author's job is always to create a believable world that readers can enter. It's especially so, I think, for writers of historical fiction.
There's a book out called 'How Money Walks' written by Travis Brown. He's followed annual adjusted gross income from 1992 to 2011. Approximately $100 billion has moved to Florida from all over the country. Number two is Arizona. Where does it come from? It's come from New York; it's come from New Jersey; and it's come from California.
I put the storyboard down and came back to it like two weeks later and saw that I had written 'Butt-Head' next to the picture, and it kind of made me laugh and I thought, Well, might as well go for every laugh you can get.
The books are like children in that having written one doesn't make writing the next one any easier, because it's a new set of problems and a new set of challenges with each one, and having dealt with one before means that you now know how to do it.
I've written only two novels, but they're both long ones, and they each took a decade to write.
The vast majority of what I've seen written about me is not true. My family and friends - the people who matter to me - they know the real story.
I'd never have written the big books in London.
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
I've purposely stayed away from reading much about postmodern theory, and most everything I have read just bored me to tears. I don't think anybody's written about it, or very few have, with any verve.
'In Case You Didn't Know' was written in Mexico, actually, on a songwriter's retreat.
Great music was written by the great geniuses, and you want to do it justice.
'Axe Cop' is an animated show that just started on Fox that is based off the comic book series. And here's the hook: it's written by a 5-year-old. This 5-year-old has a brother who's, like, 28 and is in the business, and the little brother kept coming up with all these awesome stories for this character he dreamed up called Axe Cop.
In America, at the beginning of talkies, they pulled Fred Astaire from the theaters and put him on the screen and had all of these great composers write songs for him. They call it the Great American Songbook; I call it the Fred Astaire Songbook because they were written for him.
There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.
Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past.
Words played an important part in my growing up. Not only the written word... but words that flew through the air: jokes, riddles, puns.
We wanted to describe society from our Left point of view. Per had written political books, but they'd only sold 300 copies. We realised that people read crime and through the stories we could show the reader that under the official image of welfare-state Sweden there was another layer of poverty, criminality and brutality.
I've got a nice car. I love my job. I've got a bagel store, and I have breakfast every morning with friends I grew up with. I've been in movies, I've written books - I don't know how that all happened.
I write sets of books, but I've also written a lot of orphans.
This is the sixth book I've written, which isn't bad for a guy who's only read two.
A good book written for children can be read by adults.
One gets the impression that this is how Ernest Hemingway would have written had he gone to Vassar.
I had written a script called 'Freed,' which I had wanted to direct.
I do think that this planet is a totally unjust planet. I mean throughout history - history paints a beautiful picture when it's written by the victorious, but it's a planet that belongs to the strong and the more able, and usually they are tyrants. So basically, I don't see justice happening to the crushed and the weak.
I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people.
I've always written about animals. I'm still trying to process why that is.
I've written about superheroes. I've written about talking ferrets and math geniuses being chased by madmen. I've written about spies and demon-hunting soccer moms. I've created an entire world that centers around a paranormal judicial system.
Because Shakespeare's language is so expansive, we're under this misconception that it's difficult. But I discovered that it's easy because it's so brilliantly written. The words are perfect, and the language is intelligent and very emotional.
A symphony is a stage play with the parts written for instruments instead of for actors.
The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn't write them again, and wouldn't want to.
Our deal always was that we did one as scripted always, we got it like we thought we needed - so we were all happy with it as written. Then I'd let him play as long as we had time.
