Genndy Tartakovsky Quotes

I never think of an entire book at once. I always just start with a very small idea. In 'Holes,' I just began with the setting; a juvenile correctional facility located in the Texas desert. Then I slowly make up the story, and rewrite it several times, and each time I rewrite it, I get new ideas, and change the old ideas around.

No two dramatists think or write alike. Ten thousand playwrights can take the same premise, as they have done since Shakespeare, and not one play will resemble the other except in the premise. Your knowledge, your understanding of human nature, and your imagination will take care of that.

I can't tell a story just by deciding to tell a story, do it in a didactic way. I need to have my own emotion, to feel, 'Wow, there is something I can discover, I can create.'

The story, not the money, excites me.

What interests me in writing a novel is taking really remote voices, characters, and stories and beginning to create some kind of web.

Obviously, I love to do both contemporary and historical fiction. When a hint of a story grabs me, I try to go with it to see where it will take me whatever the setting.

The deepest failures any fiction writer is likely to have are failures of not quite comprehending the truth of the story that he or she is telling.

My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.

One day I had an idea for a movie. Everything came after that.

When you write a script, you always think about what your heart is asking.

I love the idea of real-life experiences finding their way into fiction. I think that's really cool.

I'm a great believer in gathering together all your obsessions and seeing if you can make a novel out of them.

To write a story, I think you really have to open yourself up to the world.

A book begins with an image or character or situation that I care about deeply.

Writing fiction, there are no limits to what you write as long as it increases the value of the paper you are writing on.

Every creative story is different. And yet every creative story is the same: There was nothing, now there is something. It's almost like magic.

If the script is telling the story well, that is your inspiration, and you do not need to go somewhere else.

As long as there's a strong theme that I can identify with, that's what makes me interested in writing.

My stories often begin with a situation or character rather than an insight about the human condition. It's always been difficult for me to write from an abstract idea, no matter how interesting or compelling I feel the idea might be.

A good script can come from anywhere.

I believe any fiction writer is inspired by real life.

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

When you write fiction, you have an ideal reader in your mind who's sort of you but smarter.

There's no game plan when it comes to thinking up new characters; inspiration can come from anything - from a wig I've seen to an expression I've heard someone use.

I sort of love reading the scripts and going, 'Oh wow, what a great idea. I never would have thought of that.'