Cy Twombly Quotes

What I'd like to be is a unique writer who's different from everybody else. I want to be a writer who tells stories unlike other writers'.

I love to write what I see and what I do and what I experience, and I like to see if people can relate to that. I don't know if I am as good at making up a story in my head that has no truth to it, so that is a challenge for me.

Write what you know.

People say I make up wild stories. But all I have to do is write down stuff that really happens.

Over the years, I have come to realize that no matter how satisfying fiction is, it becomes that much better when it actually happened.

Share your true stories.

Life writes the best stories.

All stories are true," Skarpi said. "But this one really happened, if that's what you mean.

All stories are true.

I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed.

So you want another story?" Uhh... no. We would like to know what really happened." Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?" Uhh... perhaps in English. In Japanese a story would have an element of invention in it. We don't want any invention. We want the 'straight facts,' as you say in English." Isn't telling about something--using words, English or Japanese--already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?

You want to do something that shows some type individuality and talent and imagination - at the same time, you want to be truthful to the predecessors, because obviously the audience liked something about them and you have to replicate that experience to a certain extent.

I never fantasized or invented a thing, not one thing. I knew every single thing I ever wrote about.

I'm writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn't pay any attention at all. Sometimes it's me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it's not me at all.

As writers, it is our job not only to imagine, but to witness.

A writer's work is to witness things.

I'll write about myself, or people I know, or archetypal characters, but the goal is to get at some truth, not to necessarily convey my own experience as an individual to the world.

In stand-up it really helps to play yourself and talk about your own feelings. You cannot fail to be original if you're just talking about what you think about X, Y and Z. Unless you've got a twin brother who's also a stand-up.

It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth.

I don't believe that anything's totally invented... If you're completely inventing a story, there wouldn't be an urge to tell it.

A play is fiction - and fiction is fact distilled into truth.

In a memoir, I think, the contract implies a certain degree of truth. I think you have to be as true to your memory and your experience as you possibly can.

I tell stories. That's what I do. I've always told stories.

Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.

I recorded that because it happened to me. I wasn't making a point.