Brian P. Cleary Quotes

Sean's a great, great writer.

There are probably many, many people who are better writers than me.

I have always thought that writers come with any variety of attributes. Some are capable and some aren't.

A.J. Liebling, one of my heroes, used to say that he could write better than anyone who wrote faster, and faster than anyone who could write better. I'm one nine-hundredth as good as Liebling, but that principle may slightly apply.

I always had a gift with writing. I can really write. I always felt like I can write movies or somehow get into that.

Learn to write well, or not to write at all.

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

I think it's the people who have no doubt that every word they put down is gold that probably don't write very well.

The fact that we write about it doesn't mean we play better than ordinary players at all.

Good writers are of necessity rare.

Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego.

I've figured out in the course of my life that the one thing I'm good at doing is writing books, and it would be crazy to trade that in for something else.

I can still put down some pretty nasty stuff on paper, which is what I enjoy doing.

I'm here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something.

There are plenty of clever young writers. But there is too much genius, not enough talent.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

Just because someone has stylistic limitations doesn't necessarily make them a worse writer.

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.

I'm quite good at not writing.

I'm a better writer than I am a singer, and I express myself easily through writing.

My father, Leo Henry Brown, really was talented - he could write. He had a gift, and he had a great, sly humor.

I couldn't even pick up the newspaper without saying, 'This is a fine piece of writing. I wish to hell I could write like this.'

While I wasn't very good at much else in school, in my creative-writing classes or when we had to do some writing in my English classes, I tended to do better at it.

I didn't set out to write. It was just something I always could do. Teachers would say, 'you really have this gift,' but I just didn't care.

There are some incredibly gifted writers in the world. You can count them on a hand. They're blessed, and they've worked at their craft, but there's very few.