For my writing, and because I love talking to young women about life, I often asked them which would they rather have - a father in the house with them while growing up or a big butt? I tell you 86 percent of the time, girls say a big butt because it gets them further.
I have always been delighted when told there was a piece of fanfic inspired by a book of mine floating about. I don't read it for legal reasons, but I'm thrilled to know it's there. Someone cared. Someone loved it enough to spend their free time writing about it for free.
My only fantasy about writing was that in my old days, after directing many masterpieces, I would write my memoirs.
I like to be happy when I'm writing. If not, then how will the reader manage?
My second album was written while I was on the road promoting the first record. I tried to take my personal experiences and elevate them to universal experiences, so that I wasn't writing songs about living on a tour bus or being on a TV set for the first time.
Acting is easier - writing is more creative. The lazy man vies with the industrious.
Writing is an incredibly lonely job.
The essays are different because ultimately it's things I'm interested in, and I'm really just writing about myself and using those subjects as a prism.
I wasn't interested in writing music that wasn't beautiful for me to listen to.
When I'm writing well, I feel happy. And when I go too long without writing, I begin to implode.
Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.
Even when I'm writing plays I enjoy having company and mentally I think of that company as the company I'm writing for.
I don't want my writing to be so unique that when you apply it to different genres, it seems like the previous show that people know you from.
In the back of my mind was the constant hankering, almost yearning, to write but something always stopped me in my tracks. Or if I did find my way to put a pen to paper or finger on a keyboard I'd give up after a few minutes. I'd find other things to do: Anything but writing.
The first writing I did was short short stories for a newspaper syndicate for which I was paid five dollars a piece on publication.
No matter how much money I made from writing, I'd keep the bookstore job.
My wife gave me a year to start making money out of writing, and after six months, I'd made not a bean. Suddenly, the books took off, and the beans started coming in!
'Olive Kitteridge' is a masterpiece: The writing is so perfect you don't even notice it; the story is so vivid it's less like reading a story than experiencing it firsthand.
I don't start writing a script until I can see it all in my head, then it's a matter of getting it down in white heat.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
It's a very dull thing to watch, a writer at work. So dull that whole casts of characters show up just to watch the boring writer writing.
As a member of this court I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard.
I've always liked the idea that writing is a form of travel. And I started my writing career as a mystery novelist for adults.
At the end of the day, I sit down for about five minutes and review all the problems I'm working on, research problems or writing problems, and I go to sleep. Then when I wake up in the morning, I've trained myself to not open my eyes and to just lie there and recall the problems and see if there's anything there.
I read less of everything now. With only fond memories of others' work, it will be interesting to give my own journal writing a try now.
In general, when I'm writing, I concentrate on the story itself, and I leave it to other people, such as agents and publishers, to work out who it's for.
Although we are being presented in Carnegie Hall, we have to furnish a budget for our guest stars, and for the music writing - which is a huge budget in any orchestra that plays popular music.
One would think that in writing about literary men and matters there would be no difficulty in finding a title for one's essay, or that any embarrassment which might arise would be from excess of material. I find this, however, far from being the case.
'Thank you power' is writing down the moments that are good in your life so that you can go back and reflect on them - so you've got this sort of repository of good stuff in your past.
I prefer writing in the mornings, so to that extent I have a routine. I do reading and other things in the afternoon.
He was certainly in a confused state. I used to go and visit him in Callan Park. They were really - to me they were the best poets those two writing in those days but it wasn't very encouraging because, well, they weren't getting far were they?
I was totally absorbed in the real world, the politics, the history, the news, and I just couldn't find my way into the fictional world... When I finally could return to writing the novel, it was in fits and starts.
I took up writing to escape the drudgery of that every day cubicle kind of war.
I think some of the best modern writing comes now from travellers.
I know I'm really good at writing for the theater. I can deny it all I want. Other people can fight me on it. It doesn't really matter. It's the thing I happen to know is my gift.
People who work in factories or in the woods or maybe a dairy farm - for years, I've been fascinated with people like that. No pretensions. They just live their lives. I found them beautiful. They were all I seemed to be interested in writing about.
