Tennessee Williams Quotes

Something people say about acting is that acting is listening. But I think that writing is listening, too. That you really have to listen to what are they saying and what they're communicating to you. And so, a lot of it is just getting stuff down.

When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away - even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

Writing stories, adopting other characters, making up fantastic stories and tales, this is a way of perhaps enhancing who I am. Writing stories takes a commonplace old life and makes it all somehow more interesting. And hopefully I can do that in a way that touches a lot of people in their lives, too.

You have to have heart's passion to write a novel.

Everyone has early fiction fantasies, but it wasn't until my second child Betsy was born that I allowed the urge to write a novel bubble up.

This is the story, this is your character, I have the sense of the landscape, I have the sense of the scene, I have all that stuff. But I'm also looking for something else to happen, an accident or something. You're focused on the story you intend to tell and then you have to have a peripheral net out to catch these accidents.

I'll often dream about characters before I start writing their stories.

I got into writing because books and stories were always a big part of my life. I loved listening to them and then reading them, and I loved making them up.

Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.

What do you do in a novel? You take recognizable characters from your own life, and you fantasize about what they're really like.

To be a novelist, all I need is a pen and a piece of paper.

My only qualifications to be an actor were that I'm daring, and I'm a quick learner. I've always learnt by watching what other people do. It's the same with my writing. I write what I know. Structurally, I write in a very undisciplined way.

I spend a lot of time writing. I get inspiration from texts rather than images.

I don't know anyone who is a writer who isn't influenced by the relationships in their life.

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.

When I started writing and illustrating, I knew little of classic children's literature. My stories came from real life, from my concerns about what was happening in the world.

I think that one of the things you have to do to become a storyteller is spend a lot of time reading stories.

It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

I feel like reading really defined me as a writer because I lived my life outside of my own body for so much of my life and I loved it. I've always been a reader. I think living all those stories served me to naturally take that next step to creating.

I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.

A story in your head isn't a story. It's just a daydream until you actually write it down. So write it down.

I don't really decide what the core of the story is before I write. I write to figure out what the story is. And I think the characters end up talking to you and telling you what they want to be doing and what is important to them. So in some ways, your job is to listen as much as it is to write.

If I have a long period of time away from acting, I tend to write.

Variety of characters and themes bring out the best in me.

I always had stories inside my head and one day I just decided to start writing them down. I didn't actually decide.