My dad was the baby. When he was born they were already successful. They sent him to business school - he probably would have loved to have been a poet or a writer or something, and he was very creative.
It could be argued that every age gets the comfort savagery writer it deserves.
I love Maira Kalman. She's an amazing illustrator and writer. I've loved her since I was in college, but when I moved to New York and experienced the same city she was drawing and writing about, I developed a whole new appreciation. Her work made me observe everything so much deeper and more joyfully.
As a writer, you must know what promise your story or novel makes. Your reader will know.
I think I began to like writing a lot more, and to be a better writer, when I did it for a while alone. It made me a little more confident about my style.
Obsession remains the price of creation, and the writer who declines that risk will come up with nothing more creative than 'The Foxes of Harrow' or 'Mrs. Parkington.'
I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.
My way of dealing with the world has always been to make fun of it and observe it but not take part in it. That's how I became a writer. But when you have kids, suddenly you have to be part of things. It leads almost to a breakdown because your whole defense mechanism is now really destructive.
I think a man turns into a writer by editing his own texts.
Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world that simply.
I maintain an ongoing survey of Internet Publishing and self publishing, so that it is now possible for any writer with a book to get it published at nominal cost or free, and to have it on sale at booksellers like Amazon.com.
I'm a Hollywood writer, so I put on my sports jacket and take off my brain.
Coming from Canada, being a writer and Jewish as well, I have impeccable paranoia credentials.
I read very widely, both non-fiction and fiction, so I don't think there's a single writer who influences me.
The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.
I can't imagine a more fulfilling thing for a writer than that you've made a strong impact on the lives of other people. Just because I've heard it before does not mean I don't want to hear it one more time.
The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.
The truth is, a director wins an Oscar for a writer's script and actors' performances.
If I have enough ego to say I'm a writer, a director, a producer, and an actor, I should have the energy and the knowledge to write a scene for this great actor named Henry Fonda and direct him in it and have it work.
I'm clearly not a writer, but I'm always a fan of them.
I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.
When you combine something to say with the skill to say it properly, then you've got a good writer.
Things happen to all of us. The writer's job is to get you interested.
I think there's a time as a writer when you want to see the best things in life, and you go out wherever you go with your dreams as a writer or a composer.
A writer never reads his work. For him, it is the unreadable, a secret, and he cannot remain face to face with it. A secret, because he is separated from it.
If you want to be a writer, don't worry so much about writing. Read as much as you can. Read as many different writers as you can. Soak up the styles.
In Europe, a writer is supposed to improve up until he's about 75.
I am traditional: a big note writer, and I like using the phone.
That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.
George Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I'm 100 percent fiction writer... I don't want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don't state my political messages to anybody.
I think after you write something and you're finished with it, there is a sense of loss. That this is a world I can't really re-enter the way that I could when I was working on it. The covers of the book close it to the writer.
I cannot recall any moment of clarity about becoming a writer. I always liked to read. That's what did it.
Here I am, where I ought to be. A writer must have a place where he or she feels this, a place to love and be irritated with.
I decided I would go to Chicago and try my luck as a writer after those eight months as a fireman.
My dad was a sports writer when I was younger and then he became just a general columnist. But I grew up with him literally getting into brawls with football coaches.
I think a writer's job is to provoke questions. I like to think that if someone's read a book of mine, they've had - I don't know what - the literary equivalent of a shower. Something that would start them thinking in a slightly different way, perhaps. That's what I think writers are for.
