Samantha Morton Quotes

Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

I've written many nonfiction books, but that's a special gift.

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.

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

No, you're either born a writer, a storyteller, or you're not.

I think writing is such a great talent, and if I was better, I would love to be a writer.

Humans are very complex; I definitely have a new respect for authors that are able to write books nonstop. It's an incredible talent.

I never think that any writer can teach someone how to write.

I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

And writing I think is a gift that you have, the same as acting, in a way.

I just admire people like Woody Allen, who every year writes an original screenplay. It's astonishing. I always wished that I could do that.

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.

It's very hard to tell somebody how to write when they're so good, and they're a brilliant writer and a really good guy.

I always had a thing for writing. Even when I was in school, I was always good at writing.

There are seldom more than a couple of students in any workshop who seem natural writers.

Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

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

Writing is not an unknown territory for me.

The most despised sector of Hollywood are the writers. A good writer is quickly promoted to a 'concept man' - and then a producer - because he's too valuable to simply be a writer.

I am, really, a great writer; my only difficulty is in finding great readers.

The best writers who have put pen to paper have often had a journalism background.

All this is rather pretentious and fey to even talk about, but Flannery O'Connor sat down to write stories. The rest of us, some of us, don't have that kind of wit and genius. We don't do that. We sit down and have some accidents.