You write in songs what you're too scared to write in real life, and then you sing the songs to loads of people instead of telling it to the person you should be telling it to... Songs are a great way of dealing with those issues but kind of a coward's way as well.
It would be fun to write with Adele, actually. She seems like a fun girl to write with.
Other people can write grown-up, political plays about the troubles in the world. My plays deal with magic and hope.
I will try to write books until I drop dead.
The way to praise a poet is to write a poem.
Not to take anything away from artists who don't write their own songs, but it's always been important to me to make sure it's my story.
They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited 'first chapters'. I have indeed written many.
A lot of times, I walk down the street and listen to people argue, and then I write a song about it.
It took me a long time to write again because Katrina destroyed the home I loved, and that robbed me of hope.
I don't think anybody in my family meant there to be any pressure for me to write. But our parents were incredibly verbal and wrote for a living. The house was full of books, and we all grew up steeped in language. I mean, our mother recited poetry at the dinner table.
It's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing. I'm not a musician. I never thought of performing in a rock n' roll band. I was just drawn in. It was like being called to duty - I was called to duty, and I did my duty as best as I could.
College isn't in everyone's hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn't mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.
The major tragedies in life, there's just no compensation. But the minor ones you can always write about. It's my way of dealing, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than psychiatrists. The story, you see, will get you through.
I think New York is a good place to write in general because it's a grid. It's organized. You know where you are on the map. That centers you, and your imagination is perhaps freer to roam.
I rekindled a friendship I hadn't had in a long time, and I was reminded of all the parts of me that had left. I was like, 'Wow, I love to paint and to write and to be outside.'
I like ice hockey. No one is ever going to ask me to write about that as a metaphor for life.
I was a police reporter, so I got into the worlds that I write about, and I think many of the details in my books come from those days.
Anyone can sit down and write two pages of a novel, then forget about it, and a week later write five pages of a screenplay, then forget about it, and a week later start another novel... etc, etc.
Every time I write a book, I've probably taken five years off my life.
When you're reading, you're not where you are; you're in the book. By the same token, I can write anywhere.
The way I live now is that I only write, which means that I'm very poor but very happy. Everything in my life is the way I want it to be.
They say that every writer, they write about himself, and I think that to a certain extent that is true. But also we are creators of fiction.
I guess I usually write when I'm in a really intense headspace, because it's my form of self-therapy.
They say shock therapy is good for some things, but it didn't do me any good. It was a pretty primitive treatment at the time - once they gave it to you, you couldn't remember how long you'd been there. It knocked me back for a long time. I thought I'd never write again.
I like to believe that I don't think of myself as a writer. I am an amateur. Back when I was teaching, I wrote when I could. Weekends were good typewriter time. Now, it's whenever I feel there's something to be put on paper. I don't care what time it is, though I always write in the notebooks at night.
Everybody said, 'You hit it so big when you were on 'Ally McBeal.' ' I didn't do anything for a year after 'Ally McBeal,' and I had to write David Kelley to get myself back on 'Ally' a second time because I thought the character should be on again.
I grew up with Forrest J. Ackerman's 'Famous Monsters of Filmland' along with a plethora of movie tomes and wanted to write about film with a sense of personality, passion, and humor.
I wrote every day between the ages of 12 and 20 when I stopped because I went to Barcelona, where life was too exciting to write.
I like writers who seem to write because they have to. You get the feeling of this burning desire to tell a story. I find it in Peter Carey, Nicola Barker, Ali Smith and David Foster Wallace.
If something comes up I might write about it, but without an outlet the whole thing winds down.
I'm trying to write about serious issues, about Iceland's journey into modernity, about the soul of Iceland - on how people react when they get too much money too quickly and how it affects our culture.
You need to get outside of your comfort zone to write songs that are interesting, songs that are compelling, songs that are different from what other people are writing.
I'm the perfect amount of guarded. I don't reveal too much, and I never reveal who the songs are about. They are real life. People get that. I date a lot of musicians and they do the same thing. People that work with me - who I write about too - they get it. It's my creative outlet, my therapy.
'E.T.' began with me trying to write a story about my parents' divorce.
Part of my therapy is to write.
I have been fighting writing songs for a long time. People keep telling me I should write, and other writers have offered to write with me, and to be honest, it's not something I've ever really had a passion for - plus I wasn't sure I had the talent to do it!
