Bob Mayer Quotes

I just have to proceed as usual. No matter what happens, nothing helps with the writing of the next book.

I don't generally listen to music while working, but sometimes music can help me get past minor writer's block.

I have a hard time writing, and I usually have to put a timer at my desk and put it on for an hour. But I love to illustrate, and I can hardly stop myself.

I find writing really difficult - definitely the most difficult of all the things I do.

After 'A Suitable Boy,' I didn't write anything, not even a short story. I thought to myself: 'I ought to start writing.' But I can never force myself to write.

I don't believe in writer's block. Think about it - when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn't it always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer's block is having too much time on your hands.

There is one person who can help solve 'writer's block'. His name is Mr. Johnnie Walker.

I've had one experience of writer's block in my life, and it was living hell. It was a terror for me.

Any writer who has difficulty in writing is probably not onto his true subject, but wasting time with false, petty goals; as soon as you connect with your true subject you will write.

Philip Larkin didn't write for several years before his life ended. And when he was asked why he didn't write, he said the muse deserted him. And when I read that, it really had a profound effect upon me, sort of scared me. So that's why I think I have no right to assume that some thought is going to come... But I think, in my imagination, if it is it, there will probably be something else I'm interested in.

I think everyone loves 'The Departed.' That was a movie that had a lot of problems structurally. And we had to battle with it. Fight. Experiment. Try different things. And I think finally we hit it.

There's always a problem when you write, something you're trying to resolve, and sometimes a view can be inspiring.

It may be that learning to do creative work of any kind - not just direct imagery exercises - may help combat writer's block.

The creative process requires a period of boredom, of being stuck. That's actually a very uncomfortable period that a lot of people mistake for writer's block, but it's actually just part one of a long process.

It's easy for me to write songs but hard for me to write an album; that's been my experience.

Usually with me, the ideas I have for movies just sort of pop into my head. I've read a bunch of screenwriting books over the years and, to be honest, they're mostly pretty crappy.

I don't believe in writer's block. I'll get stuck, but being stuck, I'll still write a verse. If you know where you're going, you can always start from there and work your way back.

For writers that rehearsal period is death. It is the most destructive thing of all to a script.

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. But routinely when I finish a book, I think, "What will I do? Where will I get an idea?" And a kind of low-level panic sets in. And then eventually something happens. I don't know. If I knew how it happened I would repeat the process, but I don't know - something just occurs to me.

I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.

I start out to write five days a week, and then it runs to six days and finally seven. Then, eventually, that wave of weariness overwhelms me and I don't know what's the matter. That is, I know but I won't admit it. I'm just tired from writing. As you get older, writing becomes harder. By that I mean you see so many more potentialities. Things like transition used to trouble me. But not any more. When I say it's harder, I'm not talking about facility. You learn all the so-called tricks, but then you don't want to use them.

While I do believe I become a technically better writer over time, in others ways writing gets harder because inspiration is finite.

Writing is hard, even for authors who do it all the time.

I read my own books sometimes to cheer me when it is hard to write, and then I remember that it was always difficult, and how nearly impossible it was sometimes.

The writing is always the easy part, provided I can get the good material. It's the getting of the good material that's a challenge.