Elif Batuman Quotes

To some extent, I draw on what I see around me; in other places, I imagine what I write.

People have asked me a lot, 'What comes first? The pictures or the story? The story or the picture?' It's hard to describe because often they seem to come at the same time. I'm seeing images while I'm thinking of the story.

I sit in my room at my desk, looking out the window to the yard and waiting for a plot to come to me, to rise slowly in my mind.

I think I always have many ideas for books in my head. It's like a forest full of mushrooms. Some are big, some are small.

When someone's a writer, it's very creative and moody, and you think of someone walking around the office in pajamas thinking of ideas.

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.

It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.'

I have these huge black foam boards on the wall, and tacked to them, I have these white punch cards with my story ideas, scenes and notes.

I don't start writing a script until I can see it all in my head, then it's a matter of getting it down in white heat.

There's no game plan when it comes to thinking up new characters; inspiration can come from anything - from a wig I've seen to an expression I've heard someone use.

Sometimes I'll have an idea for a story or have a subject, and that will inspire lyrics, but most of the time, hopefully, they already exist somewhere else.

Blank paper has always inspired me.

I don't stare at a sheet of paper and try to think of a good word to use. I try to see where the story should go.

A lot of writing is a form of seeing - putting down what you see in terms of action and landscape.

Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.

I picture my books as movies when I get stuck, and when I'm working on a new idea, the first thing I do is hit theaters to work out pacing and mood.

At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.

When I see things in the world that leap out at me, I want to make use of them in fiction. Maybe every writer does that. It just depends on what you claim or appropriate as yours.

What's funny about that is when I was writing Twilight just for myself and not thinking of it as a book, I was not thinking about publishing, and yet at the same time I was casting it in my head. Because when I read books, I see them very visually.

I don't sit down in front of my computer screen and think, 'Right. Today I shall begin a story set in this or that period of history.' I just get ideas from the world around me.

People sometimes ask who I would cast in my books and I never have any idea. I don't think I could ever write a book thinking of it as a movie the whole time. This would be like building a house and filling it with furniture just so you could have blueprints.

For a writer it's a dream to sit and watch people as close as possible.

Quite often, little germs of ideas have come from something that I've observed or someone's told me. The process of it becoming fiction is expanding and extending it: stretching the rubber band of reality.

When I write, it's like watching a movie in my head.

Sometimes, I get ideas from dreams. Often, my stories are based on adventures that I, or my friends, have actually lived.