George Bernard Shaw Quotes

I feel that if you made your writing too contrived to meet the market, it wouldn't be any good.

I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No - I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.

I'd rather make a show 100 people need to see, than a show that 1000 people want to see.

Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.

The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always.

Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.

The only pressure I feel is to write good books. And to not replicate the previous book. Whether you have a thousand readers or a million readers it doesn't change the pressure. I never feel tempted to give the reader what I think the reader wants.

I'm not a pop act, churning stuff out really quickly. I find the music that arises from that style of working is distracted, not particularly profound.

The only thing that's authentic about what a writer writes is his work.

No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.

Bernard Shaw said that when you copy yourself, you know you've got style. And I feel that if you can write like you write, then you are true to yourself. And it's not an easy thing to do - it's a disgustingly difficult thing to do.

I write my songs and just play them, so there are not a whole lot of fireworks. As long as the music comes first, it's OK to have some fireworks. But not the other way around.

It looks like you can write a minimalist piece without much bleeding. And you can. But not a good one.

Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.

Fiction is the thing I esteem most in my own work; I feel that, even if it's no good, only I could have written those books.

When I started off with Trainspotting, it was the way the characters came to me. That's how they sounded to me. It seemed pretentious to sound any other way. I wasn't making any kind of political statement.

I haven't read a book in a very, very long time because, when I'm writing, I don't like to see other people's work. I don't want to see something great and not be able to use it, and I don't want to have any subconscious influences.

I can only say that I myself wrote always as I wished, without a tremendous desire to find the latest thing possible.

I don't like books that play to the gallery, but I've become more concerned with telling a story as clearly and engagingly as I can.

I fear becoming formulaic. Some of my books are.

Of course, I write. I have stories to tell. But I don't want to do superficial stuff any more.

I would rather write something that's authentic to me than something that'll be likely to get played on the radio but doesn't have any substance to it. People can see through that really quickly.

I've always thought, since the beginning of my career, that it was better to take your time and write some good stuff and then go in and not be pushed or forced into just crankin' stuff out, whether it was great or not.

I'll never put out some super-dumbed-down music. It'll always have some substance to it.

I think that some of the writing, directing, and the content is better than a lot of movies sometimes. Actors, well artists in general - actors, writers, directors - what we all care about the most is good work and being able to create something that is really resonant and meaningful.