Joseph Barbera Quotes

In the most self-protective of ways, I don't think about the reader when I'm writing - I just think about the story.

I prefer writing originals.

Being a fiction writer makes you someone who works with irresponsibility.

I have to write. I have to be an artist.

I'm always thinking about stories and ideas, and I have a few I'd like to actively pursue, but as much as I love them, I love the process of creation, and I want to go on and create things for myself, and create new things.

I'm constantly creating and writing.

All fiction becomes autobiographical when the author has true talent.

I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.

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.

There are many ways to go about a story. And if you give yourself some formal constraints, it just makes the job so much - maybe 'easier' isn't the right word, but because you know your boundaries, you can just play within those boundaries much more, so it's much more fun to do.

I try and make little stories. Whether it's with a pencil or with bits of records, it's really the same thing.

I've always loved writing, and the impulse for me is storytelling. I don't sit down and think: 'What political message can I sell?' I love the creativity of it.

I may attempt a novel. I think that no matter what you write, it requires being honest with oneself, and you have to pull yourself out of the whirlwind of daily life.

You know how it is with writing. You just write what you want to write. There's no way to predict what is good or bad. You just do what you think is funny, and either it works or you're finished. It's impossible to predict anything.

There's a mystery to writing, and you don't really know where most of it comes from.

There's actually nothing interesting about me except what I write.

I know that to write you have to have stories you want to tell. You have to keep your mind alive, and you have to work hard.

The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.

Being an author is fun. It's a great job, because I can stay up as late as I want, and if I feel like taking the day off, I do it. Plus, I get to make up silly stories and draw pictures all day.

I really enjoy writing novels. It's like the ocean. You can just build a boat and take off.

That's the great thing about being a writer. You dream up amazing questions... and then dream up even more amazing answers.

What I'm trying to do is to write a story. If you take something from it, that's wonderful; if you don't, that's wonderful as well.

Literature for me isn't a workaday job, but something which involves desires, dreams and fantasy.

I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.

A book comes and says, 'Write me.' My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate.