The films of which I'm most proud I've written are the ones that pivot on forgiveness.
I tend to describe recurring themes as being part of a writer's DNA - something so deeply embedded in us that even we don't notice it until we've written three or four books.
A book is not an example of 'women's writing' simply because it is written by a woman. Writing may become 'women's writing' when it could not have been written by a man.
I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I've written 29 damn plays. Isn't that enough?
I like all things grammatical, and I had already written several books about parts of speech, and even the alphabet, so everything that makes up a sentence and even a word was covered except for punctuation.
I've written six novels and four pieces of nonfiction, so I don't really have a genre these days.
Since the moment I could hold a pencil, I have spent nearly all day every day writing. And there is not an age group that I have not written for. You can read me from birth 'til death.
That's an aspect of this business which can be very frustrating and aggravating. Most of what is written about you is wrong and so much of what does get printed is often about personal things that you don't want to have other people read about.
Many fantasy novels - 'Lord of the Rings', for instance, or 'Lavondyss' by Robert Holdstock - are beautifully written. Geoff Ryman's 'The Child Garden' is exquisite and utterly beguiling. Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy is an astonishing piece of multi-faceted storytelling. So quality of writing does not condemn the genre.
The first album didn't become successful until the second was practically written.
All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.
There is no such thing as a Mass Mind. The Mass Audience is made up of individuals, and good advertising is written always from one person to another. When it is aimed at millions it rarely moves anyone.
'Somebody That I Used to Know,' like a lot of the record, was a bit of a struggle to finish. It was written fairly quickly - I wrote it in November 2010 - but it took six months to find Kimbra and really realize she was the right vocalist to make the female part come to life. There were constant hurdles.
Every thought and word that a novelist thinks or writes is part of that castle constructed from sands on the beach of Me, including the turret or rampart or moat he may have thought or written on behalf of someone or something else.
I wrote small stories here and there, then bigger ones. Some were even written for money. I signed up for a writing class and snuck my first assignment on a yellow legal pad in a partner's office while he read through my memo.
Everything I've written I see in a very precise way and I hear in my inner ear.
Like all bands, the first two albums are always the ones most written about, and the most covered. When a band gets to their third of fourth album, the story of the band has already been told.
There has been so much rubbish written up in the papers over the years.
Written by a sponge dipped in warm milk and sprinkled with sugar.
I was a good college kid, all-American and baseball-playing, living in the dorms with a million barbarians. I did not expect to be claimed by Fitzgerald hook, line, and sinker. 'This Side of Paradise' - that sweet, sophomoric pastiche of notes, scenes, poetry, and plays - I felt like he'd written the book just for me.
If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!
Having 'The Expats' not be 'wholesale-y' rejected by the world made it possible for me to write the second book and have a publisher buy it before it was entirely written. And it made it easier for me and my publisher to get 'The Accident' out into the world without trying to convince people to pay attention to it the way you do for a first novel.
One of the humbling things about having written more than one novel is the sense that every time you begin, that new empty page does not know who you are.
The nature of the beast is that film is a director's medium. It's not a Tracy Letts play, it's a John Wells film. 'August: Osage County,' as a play, is done. Written. On the shelf. It'll be performed in its entirety for years.
In Fargo, they say, well, that's a job. How well do you get paid? For example, for this book I was written about in Entertainment Weekly, and it was kind of cool because my mom asked me if Entertainment Weekly was a magazine or a newspaper.
The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.
I find that the Amazon comments often are exceptionally shrewd and insightful, so I'm not going to diss them. But you don't really have any guarantees that what you're reading wasn't written out of friendship or spite.
I've written many love songs for Gerard. But it's never enough. I feel that he deserves a million love songs written for him.
Marriage - a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose.
When you're stuck, and sure you've written absolutely garbage, force yourself to finish and then decide to fix or scrap it - or you will never know if you can.
I've written immense love letters that are supposed to be opened over days at a time.
I've never written a children's book, but when people meet me for the first time and I say I write books, they invariably reply, 'Children's books?' Maybe it's something about my face.
The Indian story has never been written. Maybe I am the man to do it.
I was one of those guys, you know, playing and singing, and there was no reason for me to write a song, because there were so many beautiful songs out. And Bob Dylan was always the ultimate songwriter, and nobody could ever write a song as good as him, and nobody ever has written a song as good as him.
When I started out, I was definitely writing about experiences that I hadn't had yet. The songs were just based on my influences, songwriters that had written songs before me and that were more experienced and 20, 30 years older than me.
