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If anyone e-mails you something "by George Carlin," there's a 99 percent chance I did not write it. I didn't write "Paradox Of Our Time." I didn't write "George Carlin On Aging." I didn't write a eulogy for my wife after she died. I didn't write the New Orleans thing. I didn't write "I Am A Bad American." None of them. You know what I've decided to do? I'm going to get a little cheap put-it-together-yourself website called NotMe.com.
George CarlinI write because it is while I'm writing that I feel most connected to why we're here. I write because silence is a heavy weight to carry. I write to remember. I write to heal. I write to let the air in. I write as a practice of listening.
Andrea GibsonYou have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it's hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it's better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can't write anybody's book but your own.
Cheryl StrayedWrite against patterns. Go against the devils. Write what you never write. Lie. Validate what you don’t validate. Indulge what you don’t like. Wallow in it. Write the opposite of what you always write, think, speak. Do everything against the grain!
Deena MetzgerOpen this notebook every day and write down half a page at the very least. If you have nothing to write down, then at least, following Gogol’s advice, write down that today there’s nothing to write. Always write with attention and look on writing as a holiday.
Daniil KharmsI try to write for highest common denominator. I don't write for dumb people. I figure if everybody doesn't get it, that's OK. Someone bright enough will get it, and that's who I write for. It's probably not the way to make million-sellers. What can I say? I won't apologize for trying to write for smart people.
Paul WesterbergI write pretty fast, probably faster than most people. But I might think about something for six hours, then write it in 20 minutes. So did I write for six hours and 20 minutes, or just 20 minutes? I used to write absolutely every day, except for days when I had to travel or something.
Chuck KlostermanListen carefully to the feedback your readers give you. Dont write unless people want you to write, a lot of people write just because they want to write.
Max LucadoIn terms of the economics, yes obviously the rise of e-books and how people choose to read books has a big effect on the economics of the game. But whether people are buying them on paper or downloading them there's still some poor wretch in a room who is trying to write a poem, write a story, write a novel. And so my job doesn't change. It's just how people receive it and economic conditions on the ground change, but that doesn't affect what I write.
Colson WhiteheadI've always loved opera; it never occurred to me that I would write a proper libretto. One of my closest friends is a composer, Paul Moravec, and a few years ago, Paul and I were at lunch, and I said to him, "you really have to write an opera." So, he says very casually to me, "I'll do it if you write the libretto." Well, little did I know that the within a couple of years we would end up getting a commission from the Santa Fe Opera to write an opera together, "The Letter," which turned out to be the most successful commissioned opera in the history of the Santa Fe Opera.
Terry TeachoutWe write to understand our deepest secrets to ourselves, to understand. We write in an outpouring of love. We write in secret, either for publication or for a journal no one will see, or we write poems to be privately printed for the eyes of friends alone - this is not our choice. The urge is to create. The outcome belongs to God.
Sophy BurnhamI write and write and write, and then I edit it down to the parts that I think are amusing, or that help the storyline, or I'll write a notebook full of ideas of anecdotes or story points, and then I'll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.
Al YankovicI write to please myself—of course, that is a given. But beyond this reach for pleasure, I know that I write for my countrymen, that they may be lifted from apathy and ignorance. I write because of a compulsion to make something out of the nothing that is my own life.
F. Sionil JoséI never had a plan, except to write. I love what I do, and have from the beginning. Loving what you do makes it a lot easier to work, every day, to face the tough spots and heel in for the long haul. Nothing against plans; they work for some people. But for me, if I'd been planning, worrying about numbers, trying to micro-manage my career, I wouldn't have focused on the writing. If you don't write, you're not read. If you're not read, you don't sell. So that's my Master Plan, I guess. Write the books, let the agent agent, the editor edit, the publisher publish.
Nora RobertsWriting is mysterious, and it's supposed to be...any path that gets you there is a good path in the end. But one true thing among all these paths is the need to tap a deep vein of connection between our own uncontrollable interior preoccupations and what we're most concerned about in the world around us. We write in response to that world; we write in response to what we read and learn; and in the end we write out of our deepest selves, the live, breathing, bleeding place where the picture forms, and where it all begins.
Andrea BarrettI was very young, maybe five. The opera was very... I was attracted to opera to the point that I think it's the reason I started to write music for films. I never studied. There are film and music school that teach you how to write music. I never studied that. But the influence of opera, which is a combination of storyline, visuals, staging, plus music... that was perhaps the best school I could have had. That's what gave me the idea of coming to Hollywood to write music for films.
Lalo SchifrinI only write about stuff I know. I don't have a lot of experience with boys and stuff so I write a lot of songs about interesting and strange subjects that people wouldn't write songs about.
Brie LarsonI don't get writer's block. I don't try to write anything; when something comes, I write it. I just practice and when I get an idea I write it down.
Jose JamesI didn't want to be apologetic about my love story, and I think to be willing to write about love you have to be willing to sound foolish. I wanted to write about foolish and goofy love and different relationships. I wanted to write about interracial relationships in a way that does not pretend as if race does not exist.
Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieWhen you write, you want fame, fortune and personal satisfaction. You want to write what you want to write and feel it's good, and you want this to go on for hundreds of years. You're not likely ever to get all these things, and you're not likely to give up writing and commit suicide if you don't, but that is -- and should be -- your goal. Anything else is kind of piddling.
Dashiell HammettIt's a really big struggle for me to write a song. Songs take either 30 seconds for me to write or a year or two to piece together, depending on the song and how I'm feeling on any given day. I don't really like to write music at all unless I am completely unbothered by touring.
Adam LevineMore than anything that's been the thread through my life - the desire to write, the impulse to write. I mean, it's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing.
Patti SmithThink of a book special to you, and how much bleaker and poorer your life would be if that one writer had not existed - if that one writer had not, a hundred times or a thousand, made the choice to write. You're going to be that one writer one day for somebody you may never meet. Nobody can write that book you're going to write - that book that will light up and change up a life - but you.
Sarah Rees BrennanI tell aspiring writers that you have to find what you must write. When you find it, you will know, because the subject matter won’t let you go. It’s not enough to write simply because you think it would be neat to be published. You have to be compelled to write. If you’re not, nothing else that you do matters.
Rick RiordanAnd then afterwards I worked in advertising for a year which taught me about writing even when you don't want to (laughter) because there's never a moment that you want to write about an Erickson cell phone but you have to. And that's really important you know obviously for the...like if you really want to write, you have to write every day no matter how you feel or you know. And then, yeah, and then I ended up working in TV and then from TV into movies and then directing, so.
Nicholas StollerWriters often have a 'drunk' that is different than anyone else's. That's why it's so insidious and so damning. First of all, because they can write when they're drinking - or they think they can. A lot of writers will tell me - and this is the latest one I've heard - you drink while you're thinking about what to write, but when you actually write, you sober up.
Debra WingerIf only you’d remember before ever you sit down to write that you’ve been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart’s choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won’t even underline that. It’s too important to be underlined.
J. D. SalingerIf I was gonna write a book that was true, and I was gonna write a book that was honest, then I was gonna have to write about myself in very, very negative ways.
James FreyWhen I was younger, my mother and I, we'd have these crazy, crazy fights. Everyone would storm out mad, and the only way that I'd be able to express myself was to write her. We would write letters back and forth for days. When I'm writing, I feel uninterrupted. I write what I'm going through and how I see it.
Alicia KeysDelia Sherman once told me that you never learn to write a story. You only learn to write the story you are currently writing. You have to learn how to write the next story all over again. And she's absolutely right.
Theodora GossYou always want to write the perfect song. But no one will ever write the perfect song, I guess. I would just like to write on that has all the elements of what I'm tring to do. And I'm working on it. I'm always working on it.
Mose AllisonI have a really good idea of who my readers are and always write with a sensitivity to my audience. I use the F word when necessary, but there are words I won't use, mainly because I don't like them. I don't write about body parts when I write about sex. It's not about the physiological, it's more important for teens to read about the emotional aspects. I do think there are times when self-censorship is important.
Ellen HopkinsI think the first thing - if you want to be a writer - the first thing you need to do is write. Which sounds like an obvious piece of advice. But so many people have this feeling they want to be a writer and they love to read but they don't actually write very much. The main part of being a writer, though, is being profoundly alone for hours on end, uninterrupted by email or friends or children or romantic partners and really sinking into the work and writing. That's how I write. That's how writing gets done.
Cheryl StrayedThe turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought, if really want to write, it's time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day, and I figured, I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book.
James RollinsI hope never to retire. I write so many because it's the thing I like to do most - to write. And if you write every day, you just naturally get a lot of books.
Eve BuntingEveryone tells you to write what you know. It’s the tried-and-true advice every writer hears at some point in her career. But to take my writing to a deeper level, I’ve found that a better practice is to simply write what frightens you, haunts you, even. I now keep a sign on the bulletin board in my office that reads: 'Write What Scares You.' I’ve learned that tapping into the hard stuff — whether it’s the fear of loss or a boogeyman lurking in childhood memories — is what ultimately gives a story the power to leap off the page and grab you by the collar.
Sarah JioThe danger that keeps me just a little frightened with every book I write, however, is that I'll overreach myself once too often and try to write a story that I'm just plain not talented or skilful enough to write. That's the dilemma every storyteller faces. It is painful to fail. But it is far sadder when a storyteller stops wanting to try.
Orson Scott Card'Write what you know' works, but it's limiting. Write what fascinates you. Write what you can't stop thinking about.
Brian KoppelmanI write all the time, I've got a big, thick, old ledger book that I write stuff down in. I used to watch TV and write things that people would say and now I tend to get it more out of books and from conversations with people I meet.
ThighpaulsandraI write everything down. I e-mail the second I think of something, or I write notes in my BlackBerry calendar. I set up reminder alerts on my phone. And I have a notebook by my bedside so I can write down any last-minute ideas.
Giada De LaurentiisI don't write the same book over and over - I think if I did that, I would stop writing. I couldn't write a series with the same character, and I couldn't write a romance novel over and over again that takes place at a different beach every year. That's not who I am.
Jodi PicoultI paint very messy. I throw paint around. So when I let myself do the same sort of thing with my writing, and I would just write and write and write and revise, that's when I found my rhythm in writing.
Erin MorgensternLove. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.
Ray BradburyAdvertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.
David OgilvyEverybody struggles with get tiring as a musician having to play the same songs over and over again on one level or another. That is why you're cast to write the best songs you can. It keeps it going for you. My old man used to tell me be careful what you write you might have to play it for the rest of your life. That is always a challenge and the best way to remedy it is to write.
Crosby Loggins