Lawrence O'Donnell Quotes

It takes me ages to write stuff.

I've never been a fast writer.

Well, I'm a slow writer. For me, a good day is a page, maybe a page and a half. I'd love to be more efficient, but I am not.

I don't write quickly, and I don't want to.

I'm not the fastest writer. I can't just crank out ideas that are good enough.

I write slowly and get distracted a lot.

I don't actually have to think very hard when I'm writing. I mean, there are times where it's a task, and you have to plug away and plug away. But then there are times when a song writes itself in 15 minutes, and you're just struggling to keep up with it.

I don't remember ever having writer's block. If I sit in there for four hours, I'll usually have something.

It's different every time you write. Sometimes it might be harder than it was the day before. I don't like forcing it, but sometimes, if you force it a little bit, it helps you to push forward, and you get inspired in a way. I've written songs in an hour. And there are songs that have taken me six months.

Sometimes you don't really know what you're going to write about. I mean, there's times where you get into a writing room and it's a complete flop. And then there's times where you get to a writing room and you're like, 'Oh, I'm just on a roll.'

I kind of like to write fast. It keeps the pacing up. And it keeps me off the streets.

I write so slowly, I could write with my own blood and not hurt myself.

And I'm a slow writer: five, six hundred words is a good day. That's the reason it took me 20 years to write those million and a half words of the Civil War.

I used to think it was hard to write, and I still find the process more or less unpleasant, but if I know what I'm doing it rattles along, then the rewrite whips it into shape rather quickly.

There's a practical problem about time and energy, and a more subtle problem of what it does to a writer's head, to continually analyze why they write, where it all comes from, where it's going to.

I am not - thank heavens - one of those 'driven' writers who spend a fortnight buckled with empty fright over an untouched page only to wake at two in the morning feverish with paragraphs.

One of the big breakthroughs I had as a writer was when I stopped agonising over every word.

I write very, very slowly, and for me, I have to summon all sorts of resources to make one of these pieces work.

Writing is a funny thing. It's not like you're working on a schedule. It comes in fits and starts.

I'm not the slowest writer that you know.

With writing, I love doing it, but there's that love-hate relationship: You're not having a good run, you've hit a wall; it's frustrating.

It's always struck me as unfair that writing has so little sensation when it's going well.

I can't write every day. I have to skip a day in between. If I try to do it every day, nothing comes.

Because you can't write habitually and well all the time, you have to be willing to write badly. That's how you get the regularity that enables you to be present for the good stuff.

I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.