Karen Bender Quotes

My family is involved and my wife Brenda is a great, great writer. She helps me with the writing of everything and also sings with me. I owe a lot to Brenda.

When I was starting out, William Goldman took me under his wing, and he's still the person I show pages to.

I was lucky to have my wife as the art director, and it turned out to be quite something - a great success. I'm very proud of it.

It became plain very soon after our marriage that ours was to be a literary partnership.

If you're writing songs by yourself, who's going to tell you if it's good or not? But if you're writing songs with somebody else, you get that immediate feedback.

Margot Livesey, my dear friend, reads all the drafts of what I write, and I read hers. We have an intense working relationship. I've been really lucky to know her. She's a great reader and teacher as well as an astonishingly good writer.

To see my wife getting inspired from my notes and thoughts, going in the direction I wanted, and have her surprise me with wonderful choices was a real treat.

I write by myself initially. That's the way I've always written, just working on pure thought by myself. Then I bring it to the table with whoever I'm collaborating with.

Most development doesn't make it to series. So you want the writer and director to have a really good experience with development because, if it doesn't work out, you want to work with them again. You have to know their work really well, know the drafts really well, and when you give notes, you need to have really thought them through.

I feel very proud that we have managed to stay together. In these forty years we have made forty-six films. Each one has brought a certain name and contribution to cinema.

I can see how a relationship with a writer would be an easy thing.

I doubt I'll ever do another book collaboration; I've been spoiled. Roger and I both happened to move to New Mexico at about the same time, when we each had a family of young kids to raise. Socializing seemed to lead naturally to working together.

A lot of these roles that I feel like I've had some sort of impact, or that have had an effect on me, have always been with directors who have the time to somehow get to know me. Any good director's going to be curious about who it is that's coming aboard.

That first writing session, what Dan Hill calls a creative blind date, is always a real challenge, and you bring that back to your partner when you return to writing with them.

One of the great things about being married to my husband, who is also an impossible dreamer, is that we just do things.

There's a fairy story called the 'The Shoemaker and the Elves' where this old cobbler keeps leaving leather out overnight and wakes up the next day, and there's a new pair of shoes. Co-authoring is a little like that. You send off the manuscript to your partner, and a few days later, you check your email, and hey, there's more book in here!

My longest collaborative working relationship is with Katie Grand, the editor-in-chief of 'Love' magazine. Katie's an inspiration and a sounding block. She's got such great taste.

I've worked with Judd since 'Undeclared,' and once you work with Judd you never stop working with Judd.

My missus has had to put up with me boxing for so long.

Gabriel Diani has been my friend and collaborator for 14 years. He and Etta Devine are two of my favorite people and two of my favorite creative minds.

I've been writing the show with Nigel Coan, the director of 'Luxury Comedy', and Tom Meeten. Three's good. With two, you can lock horns a bit. On your own, you're not sure whether what you've made is any good. I don't know how people write novels. I would go mad.

Writing 'Father Ted' with Arthur Mathews was like being hooked up to a drip full of endorphins.

My wife is more important to me than anything in the world - including music. She's a great editor and companion for all of my work and she's a great writer herself. If you live with somebody who's smart, they'll affect your thinking more than anything.

Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer's a good idea.

a real partnership in which all parties help all others to be more fully themselves