There were five writers on Blazing Saddles.
I read a lot of science fiction and biography - these are my two favorite genres. My favorite science fiction writers are Hertling, Suarez, Gibson and Stephenson, but I enjoy many others. I dislike reading business books, although I skim a lot of them.
I've had the odd good luck of starting slowly and building gradually, something few writers are allowed anymore. As a result I've seen each of my books called the breakthrough. And each was, in its way.
Many writers who have had to deal with the subject of atrocity can't face it head-on.
As for goals, I don't set myself those anymore. I'm not one of these 'I must have achieved this and that by next year' kind of writers. I take things as they come and find that patience and persistence tend to win out in the end.
I get so used to working with writers that my prime occupation is development.
As you know from reading many of these Negro writers, we don't deal too much with the discussion of democracy and what it means and how improvisation fits in all that.
You know, as fiction writers, if our instincts are off, we can't pay our bills.
I sense a kind of fear of writing black or Asian characters from non-ethnic writers, who perhaps feel that they don't know the culture and therefore can't write about it. By and large, if there's an Asian character, I might get a call. But if the character is called 'Philip,' the chances are I won't.
I'm not one of those writers who insist they don't read reviews and don't care much about them. I do read them, and I do care about them, and they're not always what you want them to be in an ideal world.
No language is rude that can boast polite writers.
Writers are completely out of touch with reality. Writers are a crazy person. We create conflict - for a living. We do this all the time, sometimes on a weekly basis; we create horrible, incredible circumstances and then figure a way out of them. That's what we do.
Reviewers are certainly entitled to their own opinions. I've become buddies with enough writers and directors, and to be perfectly honest, the ones that have lasted a long time don't pay a lot of attention to the reviews.
I don't think I could, with a straight face, describe myself as a completely positive person, but I'm not overly negative, either. On the whole, most writers think plots through to their consequences, and it's not always a sunny place. I have an occupational temperament for anxiety.
I think my fascination is less with genre figures than with writers in general.
A lot of writers fall in love with their sentences or their construction of sentences, and sometimes that's great, but not everybody is Gabriel Garcia Marquez or James Joyce. A lot of people like to pretend that they are, and they wind up not giving people a good read or enlightening them.
There are writers out there who say they're writing a second series, and then you pick it up and it feels exactly the same, only the lead character is blonde instead of brunette.
When I was a boy, my parents were writers and they owned a bookstore, 'The Complete Traveler in New York,' so writing and books have held special places in my heart all my life.
To practice - write each and every day if possible - then try to attend professional writer's conferences where you can learn your craft, get to know fellow writers, and meet editors and agents.
We were trained as writers with the idea that literature is something that can change reality, that it's not just a very sophisticated entertainment but a way to act.
I am suspicious of writers who say their work is original and influenced by nobody. If it is, it is probably uninteresting. The biggest source of novels is other novels.
The great thing about Nashville back in the day was that the old guys hung out where the young guys were. The established writers like Harlan Howard and Jack Clement gave us encouragement and passed the guitar, you know? Chet Atkins let me sit in on his sessions. Everybody was good to us, and everybody loved the music.
Every time I make American film I just trust American directors and American writers.
Writers who are activists are very rarely taken seriously as artists.
Like so many writers I started writing stories because I didn't have much time for anything else.
It seems to me that many writers, by virtue of environments of culture, art and education, slip into writing because of their environments.
A critic is a eunuch working in a harem. He watches it, but he knows he can't do it. Critics very often are failed writers and, like failed priests, they hate religion.
As a singer, I just want to try to honor what the writers create - and as someone who's trying to write songs, I just hope I can stand in their company and not embarrass myself.
There are professional negotiators working for the writers and the actors, but basically you've got the writers and actors negotiating against businessmen. That's why you get rhetoric.
One day, the infielders were having a pretty bad time and were making some bad throws to me at first base. After digging a few out of the dirt, Joe Orengo called over to me, 'Atta boy, John, you look like a big cat.' Some of the writers overheard the remark and asked Joe about it later. The nickname has stuck with me ever since.
I actually admire some of the books by a lot of the writers who write magic realism very much, but it's not for me. It's not what I can do, but even if I could, I don't really want to try.
There is a very conservative element of crime writers that don't recognise what I do is crime fiction.
All writers are vampires.
I think young writers should get other degrees first, social sciences, arts degrees or even business degrees. What you learn is research skills, a necessity because a lot of writing is about trying to find information.
I'm not one of these writers who says, 'Oh yes, the next book is due out in one year and three days.' I just say, 'You're gonna get it when it's done. It's gonna be good, but you're not going to get it until it is good.'
Perhaps, all writers walk such a line. In general - as we all do in our dreams - I believe I put something of myself into all the characters in my novels, male as well as female.
