Robert Christgau Quotes

I don't think I'm a brilliant writer, but I'm a good writer, and it's just so empowering to get involved.

I'm very happy with the way I write. I think I do it good. But I've never really considered myself a writer.

You think you have some stable talent that will show no matter what you're writing, and if it doesn't seem to be getting across to the audience once, you can't imagine that moment when it suddenly will. Gradually, gradually you gain that confidence.

I think you can be taught to write. You can't be taught to be a good writer. For that, you have to bring something to it, yourself, something that can't be given to you.

I've figured out in the course of my life that the one thing I'm good at doing is writing books, and it would be crazy to trade that in for something else.

Any good writer is going to be well-received and is going to not be well-received; that's how you know you're a great writer.

Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.

I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything.

George is so prolific as a writer.

Writing is the only thing I am good for.

I knew very early on I wanted to be a television writer. My teachers told me I was a strong writer and had a voice. I really leaned in to that.

You can't teach somebody how to be a good writer.

If you write really good material, the rest just falls into place. There's really no trick to it.

If you give me a typewriter and I'm having a good day, I can write a scene that will astonish its readers. That will perhaps make them laugh, perhaps make them cry - that will have some emotional clout to it. It doesn't cost much to do that.

I'm here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something.

Writing headlines is a specialty - there are outstanding writers who will tell you they couldn't write a headline to save their lives.

I'm very lucky to be in projects that have such skilled writing in them.

I have always been able to write on the spot. It is a talent that I guess comes naturally.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

It feels amazing to work with writers that write really well.

English of course is your major tool, but it is not nearly so important as other aspects of writing for example you have to have some natural ability you can't buy it no one puts it there you're born with it.

A lot of people ask me, 'Are you born a writer?' And I don't think it's necessarily true. I just think what you either have or you don't is this ability to see something that's complex and worth talking about.

Sean's a great, great writer.

There is no motivation higher than being a good writer.

My father, Leo Henry Brown, really was talented - he could write. He had a gift, and he had a great, sly humor.