A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer.
I suppose I'm most influenced by any good, commercial writer. I learn from everyone.
To me, the writer's main job is to just make the story unscroll in such a way that the reader is snared - she's right there, seeing things happen and caring about them. And if you dedicate yourself to this job, the meanings more or less take care of themselves. That's the theory, anyway.
I'm not the fastest writer. I can't just crank out ideas that are good enough.
There's a way in which filmmaking is a director's medium and television is a writer's medium, so even as TV gets more cinematic, it's still guided by the writer.
I just have a thing for writers. Maybe it because I'm just so not a writer.
I think I have a pretty goofy profile for a writer. It seems to me most writers were reading 'Little Women' when they were 6 months old. At the age of a lot of my readers, I wanted to be a major league baseball player. I didn't read much.
I've got America's best writer for $300 a week.
I never thought of myself as a writer about religion until a religion came after me.
As a writer, I find it very satisfying when a lyric suddenly ties together more neatly than you expected it to. But for the listener, hearing a good lyric is not generally as exciting as hearing a great beat or a great riff or a great melody or even a distinctive singing voice for the first time.
While I was in college becoming a good Catholic I was also becoming a writer - one haunted by Catholicism.
I love being a writer. I don't really want to do anything else!
In elementary school, I did well in science, but I was a poor writer. When I got to high school, I failed all my courses.
But it's for every writer to decide his own pace, and the pace varies with the writer and the work.
I'm not the slowest writer that you know.
It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator's skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writings, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it. He therefore becomes a student of how people read or listen.
I pretty much only write by default, because I want to make certain projects so instead of trying to wait and find them, I create them, but I'm not really a writer.
My parents thought it was nice to develop my imagination, but they never seriously thought that anything would ever come of it. They said that I couldn't be an actress because I would be taller than all my leading men, so I thought I would be a writer instead.
I think the only boundaries are individual and personal. A writer should be free to write about anything he or she wants to, including the twin towers. I have made small references to 9/11 in my past two books.
I was sure I wanted to grow up to be either a veterinarian or a writer. In fact, I worked for a vet during high school, doing everything from cleaning cages to assisting in surgery.
I've always thought of myself as an organic writer, rather than a cerebral one. I feel my way along as I go, hoping I'll get to the place I intend to reach.
Why does one always ask a writer why they stopped? I am sure everyone finds in any drawer a few dear poems.
I'm more of a writer than an actor, and I used to say that I'm mostly an improviser, though I haven't improvised in awhile.
Listen to advice. You don't know how many writer's conferences I've taught at where at least half the audience fights all the conventions of the field.
I haven't given any thought to collaborating with my sisters. It would be great fun. My daughter Molly is a wonderful writer - someday I'd love to collaborate with her.
If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer.
I'm a writer and this is what I love to do.
What helps writers, and ultimately, obviously, helps the actors - who should serve the words that the writer puts on the page - is if the character has damages, because then the writers can cultivate and excavate, like a dentist going into a tooth.
The writer who can't do his job looks to his editor to do it for him, though he won't dream of sharing his royalties with that editor.
You have to work hard to get to the top of your game. I think every writer has doubts! I still do all the time.
One of the things when you're drawing a comic book is that you're spending four or five times as long to draw it as the writer takes to write it. In my career I've had to spend a week drawing something that a writer has thrown out in an hour. And there's nothing worse than having to work on something that no previous thought has gone into.
I feel empowered to be a different kind of writer. The longer I stay here, the more light filters into my work. I feel very American. I belong.
As a reader, coming to my reading as a writer immersed in fairytales, I can't help but notice in so many stories, plays, poems that I read, the sort of breadcrumbs of fairytale techniques, so I'm very excited when I notice that.
I used to want to be a children's writer, because I would have all these great ideas when I was little, and I'd write them and draw them, and turn them into class.
Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.
I feel like I'm a secondary artist, a kind of a conduit for the writer, and if it's a good writer, then I have a great road map.
