Justin Theroux Quotes

I don't much believe in the idea of characters. I write with words, that is all. Whether those words are put in the mouth of this or that character does not matter to me.

My fiction-writing DNA shows in how I think about prose, how I think about the page, how I think nonfiction stories should work. And every piece of nonfiction I write, I want it to have fictional texture.

Writing a screenplay is so spare, it kind of reminded me that I really should celebrate what I can do in a book, which is description: for example, places, people, locations.

A lot of the time, a comedy script is just dialogue, and that's the main thing you have to worry about.

No matter what kind of writing you do, it's always the details that make the story.

I don't think I could write a straight drama.

Short fiction is like low relief. And if your story has no humor in it, then you're trying to look at something in the pitch dark. With the light of humor, it throws what you're writing into relief so that you can actually see it.

In journalism I can only tell what happened. In fiction, I can show it.

I'm more into describing a scenario and I move around in that scenario.

Good storytelling appeals to me - good writing.

With prose you can incorporate more details, develop scenes, sustain the tension in a special way. Prose has its own speed.

As a storyteller, you have the story that you tell, and you have the way you can tell it, and both are equally important.

A novel is not a rant.

Eventually, I just want to write wavy little short stories.

I try to write cinematically. Let me define what I mean by that. First of all, I try to write in a visual way so that the reader can watch a movie in their head. And it keeps moving. I try to structure the stories like a screenplay may be structured.

Literature is the stringing together of pictures in words.

Because I was a television writer for many years, I write very conversationally. I put things straight, and with a lot of humor.

I don't think in terms of optimism and pessimism when writing a story. I am telling a story.

I always think plot is what you fall back on if you can't write, to keep things going.

Our task as fiction writers isn't just to report something that didn't really happen. We have to give what we write a sense of reality. The tool of our tradition is language.

Whether I'm writing a novel about a guy mourning the death of his father or whether I'm writing a show about people killing each other, you want to hear characters speak and be funny and witty.

My job as an author is to tell the story in the best way possible, to make it flow seamlessly and get the reader to keep turning the page.

I'm a novelist first, and I wrote a bunch of books, and everything I write, I just find people are more interesting when there's an element of humor to it.

I write both fiction and nonfiction. I begin my fiction with the main character. The story comes later.

Listen to great storytellers; slowly, you will learn about voice, timing, tension, structure, climax - all the things you need to tell stories that will capture the imagination of your audience.