Paul Kane Quotes

I'm a goal setter, but in broad strokes. I don't have a by-October-2009-I-want-to-be-here plan. All I do is work with an element of challenge and an element of enjoyment. With that, anything can happen.

I get up very early and write a lot.

E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.

There's no formula for success in this business. You just do the best you can.

I think novelists should be disciplined and self-imposed working hours. I work a lot, but I don't feel that I'm working. I always feel that there is a child in me, healthy, and I'm playing.

I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

The idea of accumulating ambitions or achievements didn't get much further than wanting to do the next exciting thing. I really haven't set out with any list of achievements.

I think it takes a lot of desire because I think a lot of people who've never written books don't know quite how hard it is to stick with, to put in the amount of time and just make the commitment to just sit there every day and do it while everybody else is out having fun.

I do have trouble starting books. I have ideas that I have trouble starting to write. But I'm the kind of person who tends to finish everything she starts out of sheer stubbornness.

When you're stuck, and sure you've written absolutely garbage, force yourself to finish and then decide to fix or scrap it - or you will never know if you can.

Every writer uses his own way to motivate oneself.

So I thought I should write five pages a day. And that's what I did. Eventually I had a book.

Keep yourself motivated. You've got to be motivated, you've got to wake up every day and understand what that day is about; you've got to have personal goals - short term goals, intermediate goals, and long term goals. Be flexible in getting to those goals, but if you do not have goals, you will not achieve them.

You don't have to raise millions of dollars to be successful, you just have to work on something you are passionate about.

I'd like to meet fewer people who say 'Oh, I want to write a book, here are 10 pages I've written,' and more 'Oh, I want to write a book, here are 300 pages I've written.'

I have a lot of goals, but I think that I just want to take it day by day.

There really isn't a formula for success.

I only really set short-term goals because I don't want to put too much pressure on myself.

One of the core organizing principles of my life is that success comes through a delicate balance between making things happen and letting things happen.

Every day I write. I am not waiting for a great idea from heaven.

If you can't do something today, it will happen tomorrow or day after. If you are physically healthy and keep trying to achieve your goals, you will achieve what you want sooner or later.

Either I need an assignment with a strict deadline - like something for a movie or a TV show or whatever - or else I need to create a made-up deadline for myself for my own records. Otherwise, I don't write anything.

You need to push yourself, and in time, everything will come together at the right time.

One thing I noticed when I was young was I was impatient for success. I think everybody is impatient for success. It will come. But don't - you shouldn't let that impatience drive you crazy.