Len Deighton Quotes

I've been writing a lot of poetry recently. It helps me think and work things out.

One writes not to be read but to breathe...one writes to think, to pray, to analyze. One writes to clear one's mind, to dissipate one's fears, to face one's doubts, to look at one's mistakes--in order to retrieve them. One writes to capture and crystallize one's joy, but also to disperse one's gloom. Like prayer--you go to it in sorrow more than joy, for help, a road back to 'grace'.

Writing is a strong easement for perplexity. My life is a map, spread out with all the rivers and hills showing.

Most things I go through I have to write about.

Writing helps me process things that are happening to me.

Sometimes the only way I know how to work through something is by writing a poem. And sometimes I get to the end of the poem and look back and go, 'Oh, that's what this is all about,' and sometimes I get to the end of the poem and haven't solved anything, but at least I have a new poem out of it.

I've kept a diary since I was 11. It's a way of taking stock, almost meditative, trying to make sense of stuff because life is chaotic.

Writing is a type of therapy for me. I'm always trying to break down what happened, and why I felt a certain way.

Writing is very cathartic for me.

Writing is not just a job. It helps me to pray. It's a way of being.

Writing fiction was a way to take the ideas that troubled me or confused me and put them under pressure.

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.

I love writing and directing because it's great therapy. Every project I've done, there's been a personal connection.

If something bothers me, it bothers me for a long time until I find a way to work it out. Music provided me with a means of working things out.

My work is therapeutic: 'Monster's Ball,' 'Woodsman' and 'Shadowboxer,' because I don't go to therapy, and I sort of live life through my films.

For me, writing is a parenthesis where I can make sense of life.

Writing is very cathartic for me. As a teacher, I hear many students say that writing can be painful and exhausting. It can be, but ultimately I believe that if you push through, the process is healing and exhilarating.

The reason I write is that I'm not in dialogue with my emotions; writing puts me in touch with myself.

I used to love writing in my journal.

One sheds one's sicknesses in books - repeats and presents again one's emotions, to be master of them.

Outside of family, writing is essential. To me, it's like breathing.

First novels tend to be blood-lettings, and they're focused on you, not the reader.

For me, writing is just processing.

For me, writing something down was the only road out.

The only thing I have done religiously in my life is keep a journal. I have hundreds of them, filled with feathers, flowers, photographs, and words - without locks, open on my shelves.