From the stage, I can reach a large audience, and you learn from being on stage how much a song reaches, what extent of the crowd a song can reach. I write in a way that can reach most of the audience, but I also wanted to have truly intimate moments as well, many intimate moments, more so than the big moments.
'After 17' is a song I wrote when my first daughter went to college, so that's kind of where I'm at in that part of my life. If you listen to that song and knew anything about me, you'd say, 'Oh yeah, he wrote that about his daughter,' but I try not to write them that they are so specific that they wouldn't apply to anybody that has a child.
I don't think anyone could write about another culture and get it 100 percent accurate.
Whenever I write a story, I hope it appeals to both boys and girls.
I have a real dog-like mentality, in that it's like, 'Where is my next meal coming from? Am I ever gonna eat again? Will I ever write another song again? Will anyone show up for tour?' I think it comes from being really poor as a kid.
My theory about why Hemingway killed himself is that he heard his own voice; that he reached the point where he couldn't write without feeling he was repeating himself. That's the worst thing that can happen to a writer.
I don't know if there is any one secret to successful writing, but one important step is to move beyond imitation and discover what you can write that no one else can - that is, find out who you are and write that in an appropriate narrative and style.
I was desperate for new material, so anything I can write a joke about that works is in the act. No matter who it offends, or who it bothers - doesn't matter if its something my wife hates.
I have been reading crime books ever since I was a child, but I had never tried to write one.
I'm not a hustler. I don't pitch songs. I don't ask people to write with me. It's not what I do.
But typically for a project like the Mac, the size we had was pretty good. And it has different stages. The team grows as you have to write manuals and do testing... though the Mac had no formal testing.
Judging from the letters I've received from obviously feeble-minded persons who wish I would write another These Old Shades, it ought to sell like hot cakes.
Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.
Well, I like to write poetry. I'm a published poet.
It takes a lot of energy and a lot of neurosis to write a novel. If you were really sensible, you'd do something else.
I live in London and I am a British subject, although I do write in Spanish, of course.
The easiest thing to write was 'Fever Pitch' because it was a memoir.
I don't like people telling me what to do, or trying to MAKE me write songs.
Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.
I was 35, had always wanted to write novels, and thought that I had better do it while I was young enough.
It was spontaneously composed as I was playing it. And then I added a couple of other overdub textures on top of it after the fact. But it's one of those things where I wouldn't be able to sit down and specifically write that. That's just what came out.
I've said many times that there only two things to write about: love and death. And when you have children, you remember that the world is full of sharp corners and dangerous things, and suddenly you have these small, soft creatures, which you love in almost painful way.
Write about winter in the summer.
A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I'll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I'm crepuscular.
I want to write such things as compel the admiring acclamation of the world at large, such things as are written but once in years, things subtle but distinctly different from the books written every day.
I'm an incredibly emotional person, but I always feel bad about that. The work is therapy... I need to emote wildly while I write. I weep. I'll laugh, get excited, and get up and pace. I try to take the emotional journey with the characters.
No one in the whole movie ever asks anyone, Did you write this letter' Part of the reason is that no one wants to hear that it isn't for them. As soon as they read it, they want it to be theirs.
I write some country music. There's a song called 'I Hope You Dance.' Incredible. I was going to write that poem; somebody beat me to it.
We need to write books that publicists and marketers and booksellers and book club leaders and librarians and readers can get excited about. That have something about them that makes them stand out. That makes them shine.
I love working with male actors, and I think there's a tendency to write really interesting characters that would work solely alongside men where they would be in a man's world and have to deal with that, and it creates a lot of interesting storylines. For me, it's kind of circumstantial, but I definitely enjoy it.
I was coming back from Tel Aviv recently, and we had forty minutes of bumps. I got so scared I grabbed a paper and pen and put them in my pocket, just in case we crashed and I needed to write a letter from wherever we landed.
I always had a passion to write as a young girl.
I'm giving away my family's story. Who owns the family's story? I don't. But you could turn it around and ask, 'Who is to deny me to write my family's story?' I have hurt people, but I don't think in a dangerous way. But you can't tell.
Yes, it's hard to write. But it's harder not to.
It wasn't until I set out to write a novel about marriage that I realized how little I knew about the institution.
In sixth grade, I went to a very good private school, and I did learn there. I learned how to read and write. If I had quit school in sixth grade, I would know as much as I know today and would have made one more movie. By the time I got to college, I was so bored and angry.
