Who writes poetry imbibes honey from the poisoned lips of life.
It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.
It's problematic being an Arab who writes in Hebrew.
Pete Moffat writes crime conspiracy thrillers so beautifully. He goes places other people wouldn't; he is fearless.
Sondheim writes the music and lyrics, and because he's so smart and goes so deep with his feelings, there's a lot to explore, get involved with and learn about.
I'm competitive with anyone who writes a good song - I don't care if it's a band or solo artist or whoever.
Someone sits at a table or lies on a sofa while staring motionless at a wall or ceiling. Once in a while this person writes down seven lines, only to cross out one of them 15 minutes later, and then another hour passes, during which nothing happens. Who could stand to watch this kind of thing?
For me it's also - the music is equally as important. I mean I think as somebody who writes music, there just has to sort of be the marriage between both.
I lived the stuff that Jackie Collins writes about.
It should cause no surprise that anyone so lazy as myself should be economical to the point of miserliness with everything he writes.
My first novel was turned down by about twenty publishers over a period of two and a half years. Because my name is Irish and would not be familiar to English editors, one of them said: 'If she writes anything else, do let us know.' Slowly, very slowly, the books began to sell and be noticed.
What I try to do is to go into a poem - and one writes them, of course, poem by poem - to go into each poem, first of all without having any sense whatsoever of where it's going to end up.
A songwriter writes songs all the time, whereas just writing a song can be done by anyone, anytime.
There have been some brilliant and very successful standalone books that work in themselves and also seem to refresh a series. Anyone who writes a series lives in fear of it becoming stale, so you do whatever you can to keep it fresh - although it does feel a bit nerve-racking to write outside of your comfort zone.
A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.
The musician writes for the orchestra what his inner voice sings to him; the painter rarely relies without disadvantage solely upon the images which his inner eye presents to him; nature gives him his forms, study governs his combinations of them.
I think it's an area that one writes from that is curious because it is not a clearly defined partisan one.
I do not believe in pure idioms. I think there is naturally a desire, for whoever speaks or writes, to sign in an idiomatic, irreplaceable manner.
I think children love reading, and they will make time for it if we put the right books into their hands. And I hope I get the chance to keep being one of the people that writes them.
'White Teeth' has far too many characters, and its plot is tortured. But Smith has an astonishing intellect. She writes sharp dialogue for every age and race - and she's funny as hell.
I've always loved the dialogue that Pedro Almodovar writes.
I've always considered myself a filmmaker who writes stuff for himself to do.
In the world of book writing, an author really gets to have control over what he or she writes, which is why it is very satisfying. With the help of a great compatible editor, you really have something in the end you can call your own.
It would be curious to discover who it is to whom one writes in a diary. Possibly to some mysterious personification of one's own identity.
When someone writes to tell me something I've written made them laugh or cry, I've done my job and done it well. The rest is all semantics.
Obviously, a writer can't know everything about what she writes. It's impossible.
I'm not somebody who carries around a notepad and writes songs all day long. I don't imagine everything I think of is worth being in a song. So I tend to collect notes, and I set time aside to go to work and write songs.
Nobody writes like Nabokov; nobody ever will. What I would give to write one sentence like Vladimir!
When you're little, every experience writes on the canvas of who you are.
I believe that a writer learns from every story he writes, and when you try different things, you learn different lessons. Working with other writers, as in Hollywood or in a shared world series, will also strengthen your skills, by exposing you to new ways of seeing the work, and different approaches to certain creative challenges.
Journalist: a person without any ideas but with an ability to express them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time he has, the worse he writes.
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.
My son writes songs and plays. He sings like an angel.
If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.
The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.
People have tremendous power, more than the average person understands, and certainly more than even I understood before I came to Congress. When any of my constituents writes me a letter, I promise you, we're listening.
