Mark Billingham Quotes

Once I had all the facts in, I found I didn't have the immoral courage to pull the caper. So I wrote it as a story. As a teenager, I didn't have any skills for writing as such, so it came out in 1500 words.

To be a dramatic writer takes hard work, talent, and discipline. And that's why I just make up crap.

I enjoy writing.

I was always the kid in school who tried to get attention, not necessarily the class clown, but I'd do little unexpected performances.

I was one of those kids who always wrote.

I wrote about a bird that cleaned a crocodile's teeth. The story was so good that my teacher could not believe that a ten-year-old could write that well. I was even punished because my teacher thought I'd lied about writing it! I had always loved to write, but it was then that I realized that I had a talent for it.

I'm inspired by playwrights, novelists, poets: The value of language has been a lifelong passion of mine. I enjoy it. I'm good at it.

I never thought it was unusual to write, and I've been writing or pretending to write since before I even started school.

I started writing when I was 9 years old. I was like this weird kid who would just stay in my room, typing little funny magazines and drawing comic strips.

The idea there were kids out there who didn't love to read and write just as much as I did struck me. So I went around schools and tried to make other kids love to read and write.

It is really important that focusing on things such as spelling, punctuation, grammar and handwriting doesn't inhibit the creative flow. When I was at school there was a huge focus on copying and testing and it put me off words and stories for years.

We have a host of English teachers in the family. My mum is an English teacher, and so are my dad, my aunt and my uncle. I have grown up with family writing competitions, and I can't remember a birthday or Christmas present that didn't include books.

And I love writing; I've been writing ever since I was seven.

The first time I can remember thinking that I would like to be a writer came in sixth grade, when our teacher Mrs. Crandall gave us an extended period of time to write a long story. I loved doing it. I started working seriously at becoming a writer when I was seventeen.

I've been writing, in one way or another, for as long as I can remember.

I had a strong desire to write and some free time.

I used to write stories. Handwriting stories in school were a big deal for me. That's kind of what I did.

When I was about 13 or 14, I had an English teacher who made a deal with me that I could get out of doing all of the year's regular work if I would write a short story a week and on Friday read it to the class.

I'm still learning my craft, and I've been writing since I was nine.

I'm not a writer who teaches. I'm a teacher who writes.

I love to write. I have always loved writing. That was my first love.

I've been writing for a long time.

I started writing stories when I was six years old. I was a very shy kid, extremely shy, and I had a fabulous first-grade teacher who told me to write.

I was always writing, since I was, like, 12.

Sloane Crosley and David Sedaris are two of my favorite writers; they're the kind of writers who make you feel like, 'I can do this. I want to do this.'