Philip Sidney Quotes

I wish it was clear for me how it happened [stop writing songs], then maybe I could start writing again. But it's kind of an "it." It just submerged itself. Because the way I had always written was just that it came out. It just happened.

The idea of writer's block or not having inspiration is totally terrifying to me.

Writing is not hard. Just get paper and pencil, sit down, and write as it occurs to you. The writing is easy-it's the occurring that's hard.

Philip Larkin didn't write for several years before his life ended. And when he was asked why he didn't write, he said the muse deserted him. And when I read that, it really had a profound effect upon me, sort of scared me. So that's why I think I have no right to assume that some thought is going to come... But I think, in my imagination, if it is it, there will probably be something else I'm interested in.

Fool," said my muse to me. "Look in thy heart and write.

While I was an addict, I didn't write anything. I didn't have the attention span or the will.

Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.

The hardest period for a writer is the period in-between writing. That's when you can go crazy if you don't allow the creative juices to flow.

Writing about writing is a bit like talking about a conversation you are having; it tends to obscure desperation about where the next word is coming from.

[Margot Hentoff] stopped [writing]. She decided that she had nothing more to say. And yet, every day, she has a whole lot to say, and I wish she'd write it down.

Anything that I write comes from the soul.

For me, it would be pointless to write a novel that I knew I could complete within a specific length of time. I could do that only by repeating something I had done before, and I've never wanted to do that.

The muse holds no appointments. You can never call on it. I don't understand people who get up at 9 o'clock in the morning, put on the coffee and sit down to write.

As for the zone, I always find the zone immediately after I am sure I will never ever find the zone again because it has left me for some other, better writer.

A writer who isn't writing is asking for trouble.

If I think about the writers I love or might be influenced by, I can't write at all, so I pretend there aren't any.

I suppose all writers worry about the well running dry.

I wish I could write easily. I'm one of those guys who's visited by the muse when things are dire.

Writing, for me, is very inspiration-dependent. And inspiration can be a jerk.

I knew I wanted to be creative but didn't know how.

Some days I can't get an idea, and I think, 'Man, I'm just washed up,' but it's just a mood.

I'm always trying. Between every book, I think, 'Well now, it's time to get down to the serious stuff.'

I think what happens is that some writers, who are so great in television or whatever, once they become successful, they get out of the loop of real life. It's real hard to draw on something to write.

I used to think that most published writers, the ones I admired, had a muse, or a special connection to the universe, to nature, or to aliens - something inaccessible to me that caused their prose to flow onto the page, already perfect.

Sometimes you go for weeks without writing successfully, and you don't feel like a writer anymore. When friends ask me how my week was or how I'm doing, I think back on it, and I've just been by myself. Like, I'm just a sketch.