We hear about the Gershwins, the Kerns, and the Berlins, but there were some great little writers like Theodore Morse, Charles K. Harris, and Ernest R. Ball, who wrote 'Let the Rest of the World Go By.'
Growing up in Memphis and listening to all kinds of music and dreaming... So that was one of the first times I wrote a complete song and set it to music and the whole bit. From then on, I was busy with it.
I'm very drawn to Eastern Europe, so I like a Hungarian writer who wrote in French called Emil Cioran; he was always good for giving me such a stir.
I made a very good living as a bad writer. I wrote a lot of comedies, 'Diff'rent Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' while all my friends were doing the good shows, like 'Cheers,' but I loved it because I got to be a working writer in Hollywood.
When I wrote my first book, 'The Tennis Party', my overriding concern was that I didn't write the autobiographical first novel. I was so, so determined not to write about a 24-year-old journalist. It was going to have male characters, and middle-aged people, so I could say, 'Look, I'm not just writing about my life, I'm a real author.'
I know people who have written big hit country songs that are really kind of terrible songs, but for the rest of their life, they're the guy who wrote that. You've got to be careful; if you don't want that to happen, don't write those songs.
When I wrote the first Betsy book, 'Undead and Unwed,' I had no idea, none, that it would be a career-defining, genre-defining book, the first of over a dozen in the series, the first of over 70 published books, the first on my road to the best-seller list, the first on my road to being published in 15 countries.
I wrote most of these songs right before the end. A lot of these songs are about that. Even if it's not direct, you can feel the beginning of the end of the breakup in these songs.
One night, I wrote down all the things I was waiting to do with my little granddaughter, and it became a book, 'I Already Know I Love You.' It was one of those really lovely things in life.
I always wanted to work at 'Take A Break' magazine, you know, just to inject a little bit of politics into their stories. I applied for a job there after I'd done my law degree and didn't even get an interview. I only wrote 'Garnethill' because I didn't get that job!
This book was company for me - I wrote these things when I was in hotels, far from where I normally live. I never intended to publish it.
I found songwriting really hard at first, but after a while it was actually very easy. I wrote about everyday stuff.
I wrote and produced millions and millions of selling records, so my publishing company alone was worth millions of dollars. I didn't have to work anymore in life because when the rappers started sampling... I'm the most sampled artist in history.
I was really inspired while I was pregnant and I wrote a whole album for my baby. I wanted to write a kids album that didn't annoy parents. I used The Beatles 'Rocky Raccoon' as sort of a starting place for my writing.
When I wrote my first serious novel, 'Interior', I was inspired by a 1978 book of Updike's, 'The Coup', which is set in Africa and will come as a delightful surprise to anyone who has only read his Americana.
Only to he avoid misunderstandings, I must say that even last year, when I wrote my pamphlet, I heartily wished that Prussia should declare war against Napoleon.
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
We fought during 'The Wall,' which was an album Waters wrote, based on his family story, we clashed long before that, during the period of the Dark Side and 'Wish You Were Here.' Actually, we never got along.
I got the regular call, that they were doing a Broadway musical of Hairspray, and would I come and audition. I was familiar with the movie, because at the time it came out my lover wrote for Premiere magazine, and we had to see everything.
I majored in extracurriculars, honestly. I joined the Harvard Stand Up Comedy Society, which is a ragtag band of misfits. I wrote for 'On Harvard Time,' which was a student TV show trying to be 'The Daily Show.' And I wrote a humor column for 'The Crimson' starting my sophomore year.
To have a songwriter that wrote so specifically what I felt to be true... I've never been much of an actor either. If something is real for me, then I can do it.
Oh yeah, I was one of the first guys writing comic books, I wrote Captain America, with guys like Stan Lee, who became famous later on with Marvel Comics.
I was always writing for myself. I wrote what I needed to write and hear - that's what makes it powerful.
I used the dictionary very minimally and I just wrote how I speak. And I speak very hateful manner usually. I constantly did that because I think the fans would get more out of it if they understood exactly what I'm saying - exactly where I'm coming from.
I wrote my first book when I was 15 years old. And my second book '1,2,3 Publish Me!' shows everyone how writing a book is done in just the three secret editing levels I discovered!
I wrote the worst novel ever.
I actually started trying to be a professional writer with novels, and I wrote two that exist and are around... kind of. But they never really went anyplace in particular. I still like them both. What it showed me was that you can spend years on a novel, and then it could just be, like, OK, you spent that time and that's that.
The situation of the Old Left was the theory of Socialist Realism, etc. It seemed pointless to argue. We stayed carefully away from people who wrote for the New Masses.
When I was really young I didn't know that there was such a thing as a screenwriter. I wrote stories.
With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his tracks in the war. When I got there, there was a certain satisfaction in finding I had it right - it does look like that.
I wrote a novel for my degree, and I'm very happy I didn't submit that to a publisher. I sympathize with my professors who had to read it.
I can only say thank you and thanks also to all of the great songwriters who wrote those wonderful songs that became number ones.
I never wrote music for the mainstream.
When I first wrote for orchestra, I didn't realize, when you have 20 people playing a violin line, that is very different than one person playing that line.
I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.
I've come to think of Dunnett as the literary equivalent of the Velvet Underground; Not many people bought the books, but everyone who did wrote a novel.
