David Byrne Quotes

I don't work in a straight line. I don't write with an outline. I write where I can see things happen, and then things get glued together.

I don't write thinking directly about what I'm feeling, usually. I just let myself write whatever comes out without it necessarily being directly a translation of what I'm aware that I'm feeling, you know?

Usually when I'm writing, I kind of know what it is before I start writing and I write stream of consciousness style.

I tend to write it and then let go emotionally.

I guess I could say that I pursue questions that interest me in ways that interest me on the page, but that's awfully vague.

Sometimes I think my writing sounds like I walked out of the room and left the typewriter running.

It's while writing that suddenly a point of view appears: 'So, that's what I really thought about this thing'. Then it feels part of me.

I never have an intended audience. I just write, you know.

There is always going to be a little bit of me in each character.

I've just been writing stuff down as it comes to me. I haven't thought, 'Let me write some major opus here.'

I end up writing about all kinds of things. I never make an attempt to write about anything in particular. I don't have a little list of topics to write about.

But this is neither here nor there why do I mention it? Ask my pen, it governs me, I govern not it.

The way that I write novels in particular is I don't usually outline; I just write. Part of the fun is discovering what's happening in the story as I'm going along.

The process of composition, messing around with paragraphs and trying to make really good prose, is hardwired into my personality.

When I sit down to write, I don't have any real goals except to follow one good sentence with another... I'm not the kind of writer who has a map.

Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.

I write totally spontaneously. I actually write fiction by hand - that always seems to startle people. I think the reason I do that is to bypass the thinking part of me and get to the more unconscious part, which is where all the good ideas seem to be.

The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.

Something about your life always makes its way into your stories. That's just the nature of the beast.

The other thing in composition is opening up the unconscious.

I don't have any sense of an audience when I'm writing. I don't consider the audience. Because all I'm interested in is the problem on the page.

When I'm writing something, I try not to get analytical about it as I'm doing it, as I'm writing it.

I think that I've just kind of found my niche, if that makes sense. I still write the same, but I feel like I've found what separates me, and I always try to stay in that when I write. It took me a long time to discover that, so I try to be protective.

I try to begin writing as close to a dreamlike state as I can get.

When I write, I'm not trying to be funny. It's the way I look at the world.