Emma Lazarus Quotes

I didn't want to do a book just to do a book. I wanted to do a book that, if you should read it, you might take one thing from it. Until that was clear in my mind, I wasn't going to do one.

Don't write for money.

I don't like writing with real people in mind.

Fame, money and the size of the market are not very important to me. What is, is writing a book that is worth doing and then publishing it. I don't write books for entertainment, for people to pass the time then throw away.

I don't really write for adults or kids - I don't write for kids, I write about them. I think you need to do that; otherwise, you end up preaching down. You need to listen not so much to the audience but to the story itself.

After a while, you start to realize that you should write a book you would want to read. I try to write a book I would enjoy.

I've always been really picky about roles and make a point of reminding myself that it's not about the money - because, obviously, there's a lot of money to be made in this business if you're willing to do anything.

I'm so focused on trying to craft the story that I'm in my own little world with it and that process. The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.

I'm prepared to spend the rest of my life playing clubs, if that means I'm playing music that I believe in.

There should really not be anything gratuitous in a work of art. Sometimes what seems as if it's gratuitous may be a passage in which a character is being characterized so that the reader comes to know him or her better.

I always appreciate people's opinions, but sometimes I have to take a step back and remember why I'm writing and what I want to do with it. Shutting out the voices is difficult but it's been good for me.

Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.

I think humor can be an effective way of getting the point across, but there are definitely times where I just write very earnestly.

I never feel like I need to make a song that sells 5 million copies; that's not the point of why I make music. It's great if that happens, like it did with 'Clarity,' but my goal is to always make a better track than the last one.

I made a decision to write for my readers, not to try to find more readers for my writing.

I'd rather write one good book than ten mediocre ones.

When I write something, every word of it is meant. I can't say it enough.

You never write down to the people - you write the best you can with the hope that someone else will feel the same way.

There are some people who have been reading me for years, and they keep saying kind things about the writing. That's what you're writing for, to get people to respond to it.

My feeling is, I do a lot of low-budget films. I don't do low-budget acting. I have no interest in just goofballing my way through, thinking, 'Ah, no one's ever going to see this anyway.'

I write so that people will read what I write. I don't want to write a book that a thousand people read, or just privileged people read. I want to write a book whose emotional truth people can understand. For me, that's what it's about.

You have to keep your audience in your mind; if you're writing stuff that you know nobody's going to care about then you should rethink what you're doing!

I would say try to tell stories that you care about as opposed to stories that you think will sell.

I'm not comparing myself at all to him, but I like the idea that Ernest Hemingway always wrote about certain things he knew, he knew the ins and outs, back to fronts of what he was talking about. I love that as an inspiration for myself, to keep it true to what you know.

Whenever I write a part, I think there's this person somewhere in the world that this part is specifically for, and all I have to do is go searching to find that particular individual.