Gunter Grass Quotes

I just sort of write the book I feel like writing given the emotional place I am in my life at the time.

I just sit down and the page just comes out and I look at it and the elements that appear on that page have a lot to do with what's going on in my life.

Whatever I'm writing comes organically out of my life.

I'm not really an autobiographical writer, though I use lots of stuff from my life to make my stories seem real. But when I actually write about myself, I get very confused.

I've never tried to define my states of mind when I write.

As a writer, I wouldn't know how to not take things out of my life.

Yes, all my songs come from personal experience and relationships.

The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together.

I always like to write where I'm at in real life into whatever I'm working on.

My act has always reflected what's going on in my life.

What I write is very personal, but not autobiographical. It's more 'thematically personal' - what's up in my life in terms of themes at the moment.

Inspiration for my music just comes from, you know, my life experiences.

Whenever I'm writing a book, small details from my life always creep in.

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

I take my inspiration for the song writing from little experiences, not even if I've experienced them myself but say if something has made me sad, I will use that emotion. I just use everyday life and write about it.

The more I do in my life, the more I can write music about new experiences.

When I started to write a tune, I just wrote the nearest at hand, which was what was happening in my own life.

Because I've lived a risky and unconventional life, I don't often struggle for subjects to write about.

I used to be on the kitchen floor, crying, wasted and thinking of lyrics. That was the only way I could create - as a tortured artist. I've learned that you can be stable and taking care of yourself and still create beautiful work.

If I hadn't had that decade in the music industry and, perhaps more importantly, time to reach the point of being sick and disgusted with it, I wouldn't have written 'Kill Your Friends.' That book gave me my whole career.

I often start writing in order to excite an expansive emotion.

There's always going to be life experiences that find their way into my songs.

Writing this book feels like a completely different activity from writing my comic strip because it's about real life. I feel like I'm using a part of my brain that's been dormant until now.

People ask, 'Are your things autobiographical?,' and I think, no, they're not autobiographical directly, but of course my life has informed my work.

There is an element of autobiography in all fiction in that pain or distress, or pleasure, is based on the author's own. But in my case that is as far as it goes.