Edward Gorey Quotes

I don't have an image of myself, when I'm walking down the street, like I'm a rock star or something. I'm a human being, I'm a friend, I'm a mom, I'm a writer, and I'm an artist. I do play electric guitar and all of that but in the end I'm just a person. I really don't live like a rock star, economically or socially. I still live a pretty simple life beside the traveling aspect of it.

I've always been the audience that I wanted to reach, so I write for myself.

It's very nice to be a sort of normal person for once; I think it's about as normal as I'm going to get.

We've all got to earn a living. And writing songs is what I do. But when I've done a record, it's not that I think it's better or worse than anyone else's, but if I think that nobody else would have done it if I hadn't, well then that's ok.

There's actually nothing interesting about me except what I write.

I try to be as normal as I can.

And I'm not a personality; otherwise I'd be coming out with an album, performing on MTV. All that stuff is possible and I can do that tomorrow. I just have no need.

I live life what I consider to be normal.

I enjoy, in the summer, getting back to writing in my own voice.

I am not a famous person at home - I'm just a guy here. I'm a father, I'm a companion, I'm a human being. I am not a public figure in my house; I am not a celebrity. I am not a famous person to myself - I am just a guy.

I think most of my life I have spent trying to gain normalcy, whatever that may be.

I've always said my audience is just me. It's somebody out there who's exactly like me and just isn't writing Daring Fireball.

A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.

I don't think comedians make an active decision to be a certain "persona." Comedians write the way they're going to write.

I don't even think about having a "rock-star profile." But sure, I always think, "Wouldn't it be great to have your friends along for the ride?" I just feel like me, you know? I've always been me, and I feel like the same guy. It surprises me when people expect me to be anything other than just a dude. I'm just a dude.

I don't give a damn what other people think. It's entirely their own business. I'm not writing for other people.

I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible.

I really think I write about everyday life. I don't think I'm quite as odd as others say I am. Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring.

For a stretch of time, I got really caught up in the idea that what people liked about my work was that I was a young guy who was trying to be cool by writing about young people and a certain kind of Bay Area culture that I was tangentially a part of.

I don't consider myself an action hero, at all. My domestic life is the same as anyone else's.

I think a lot of my interest in history now isn't so much in places and names and texts and public figures, but more in examining all the nuances and idiosyncrasies of particular stories of everyday people. And if that doesn't happen, then I usually transplant myself and my own stories to a particular historical event. Which is why you'll see me, the first person pronoun, interacting in a song about Carl Sandburg, or you'll find my [sic] interacting with Saul Bellow. It's sort of a re-rendering of history and making it my own.

Since great writers communicate a vision of existence, one can't borrow their methods. The method is married to the vision.

If you write with passion in your own style, you will make a place for yourself

I am one thing, my writings are another.

People can try to make me into anything they want, but I think they're really throwing around language but saying the same thing.