Henryk Sienkiewicz Quotes

I guess what I'm trying to say is that writing is mysterious; you don't ever truly know where it is coming from, so don't edit yourself line by line. Don't get in your own way. Whatever is truly there at the core, that is your voice.

When I try to sound like the contemporary sound, it never turns out that way.

I really think that if there's any one enemy to human creativity, especially creative writing, it's self-consciousness.

Singing other people's material was perceived, I think, as a weakness of my persona. The effect, though, was to make me dig my heels in and try even harder to combine the two.

I think the beauty of the film industry is that if another person tries to become another person or act like another person or imitate another person, they don't really get too far. When that person starts to realize who they are and what they can bring to the table, they start to blossom and grow. With that, it's not so much me looking towards my predecessors who have paved the way in the industry - it's more getting inspired. I get little bits and pieces of what I can take from any and everybody.

I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.

Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

I think every writer's had the experience of having a really good idea, waiting to write it, and then once you write it, you're like, "Oh I kind of got past the sell by date on this." I'm not connected to the initial spark that was the idea. A lot of that's about staying open.

That's what it feels like when I write, like I have this beautiful world in my head, but when I try to remember it in order to write it down, I change it, and I can't ever get it back.

And for so long, I had thought if I was going to write a song, or get "into" something, I had to at least smoke a joint or something. And that didn't work anymore. Once I was fairly well cleaned out, even a little bit of a drug getting into my work threw me off kilter.

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling.

The hardest part is not to repeat yourself. I don't really believe my core obsessions are going to change, but you need to look for ways to express them that are different. The main reason for doing that is not to bore yourself, and obviously, I don't want to bore readers.

Sometimes I do feel like I write the same story again and again. And for me, I am always looking for a place with a kind of redemption.

For me, it would be pointless to write a novel that I knew I could complete within a specific length of time. I could do that only by repeating something I had done before, and I've never wanted to do that.

It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating one's own creativity - that's a much tougher matter.

No matter how many awards you've won or how many sales you've got, come the next book it's still a blank sheet of paper and you're still panicking like hell that you've got nothing new to say.

I can't cut off an ear everyday. Do the Van Gogh here and the Mozart there. Anyway it's exhausting enough always having to check up on what one is really doing!.

I often wrangle with myself as an actor, and wrestle with the process. In striving for authenticity I often have the feeling I am falling short.

In my view, the plangent artificiality of a lot of creative work results from the fact that the people who write novels, direct films and put on plays tend to read too many novels, watch too many films and go to too many plays.

I've never been comfortable with the idea of using family and friends in stories. Which is why it takes me longer than something else. Because you make them up out of nothing. Doing that is harder.

If I think about the writers I love or might be influenced by, I can't write at all, so I pretend there aren't any.

I think that's just part of how it is with making art. Sometimes you're just flooded with ideas, and then other times you're questioning all the ideas you ever had before, and everything is just... lame.

I think anyone who has, you know, is in any sort of artistic pursuit, kind of goes up and down with the way they feel about their work. And I, for the most part, am pretty happy person. But, yeah. I go through definite periods of time where I'm not funny. I'm not good. I'm - I don't feel original.

Seventy percent of what I write, I throw out. I can write very easily, but writing original things is the hard bit.