Todd Barry Quotes

Looking back at it now, it's almost overwhelming, the amount of work that went into writing 'Shine', and to come up with the ideas that we're doing now.

You just gotta record stuff and move on and make new material. Painters don't wait until they're in some specific gallery before they move on to the next painting.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

Writing is like carrying a fetus.

Writing is an incessant process of discovery.

I'm a storyteller - that's my chamber, that's my box. I'm always tryin' to give you the best story from our side of the table that you could really relate to quick. I understand where I wanna be at, but sometimes the production takes me where I need to go.

I don't believe that a writer does something wonderful spontaneously. I believe it's the result of years of living, of study, reading, his very personality and temperament. At one particular moment, all these come together and the artist 'expresses' himself.

The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.

I don't paint anymore. I haven't since I abandoned it at 19, in order to begin writing seriously.

What I feel bad about is not having published very much in the last few years.

But I think there are a set of experiences that turn a potential writer into a working writer, and then there are places in your life were you start to recognize what you want to do.

When you write your first book aged 25 or so, you have 25 years of experience, albeit much of it juvenile experience. The second book comes after an extra year sitting in bookshops. Pretty soon, you begin to run on empty.

Somebody said that my work might be an interesting source of material.

I do always want to be creating something; I can't help it. I don't know why that is, but I'm certainly not gonna knock it now, at the age of 36. It seems to be working.

I believe that writers run out of material, I really do. I believe very strongly in the fact that when the natural time is up, writers actually do run out of material. To me it's black and white. When there's a song there's a song, when there's not there's not.

My goal is to generate more material for myself.

I've never been a very prolific person, so when creativity flows, it flows. I find myself scribbling on little notepads and pieces of loose paper, which results in a very small portion of my writings to ever show up in true form.

Usually, when inspiration strikes late, the light of day reveals that I haven't gotten an idea for a book so much as a psychiatric case study.

For me, working on original material is very important.

I'm about creating a body of work and moving on to the next thing.

It's very rare I'll watch anything I'm a part of and think, 'I wouldn't change a thing.'

That's always the time to quit - when you have nothing to say as an artist and creative person.

Throughout my life, there's just periods when I write and periods when I don't. I don't feel like anything's really blocked. It's just not where things are at right now, and it's just a matter of time until there's something going on where I feel compelled to write.

When I look back I either feel I did this mistake while shooting or writing. Eventually you try and make sure you do not repeat the same mistake with your next film. I always feel I could have made the film better.

I think I'm always writing, and I'm always working, and I'm always trying to be creative. It's just something that I do all the time. I watch TV, and I'll play guitar.