Dee Rees Quotes

My sophomore English teacher encouraged me to write for the school paper, and that's what got me started. Suddenly it struck me that being a writer could be a romantic and adventurous position. Previously, I had thought I would be a tennis pro, giving lessons at a local club. I thought that would be a good life, and it might have been.

I knew I wanted to write professionally and get paid.

I've been a writer for 42 years and, yes, it is a full time job for me. Not a hobby, but serious work.

I spent 20 years of my career primarily being a writer for hire.

I always wanted to be some kind of writer or newspaper reporter. But after college... I did other things.

Sometime around 2006, I decided I had missed my true calling as a young adult author.

I always loved writing, but never considered that I could do it professionally.

When I was 30 or so - by that time I had become an assistant D.A. - I decided I would try to write a novel. To be clear: I did not decide to become a novelist. Honestly, it never crossed my mind that I could actually earn a living as a professional novelist.

The idea that you could make a living from writing always thrilled me.

I went to college to study hospitality. I quickly got out of that and realized that what I liked to do was write.

I went through a phase where I wanted to be a writer... but it's not social enough.

I instantly chucked my academic ambitions and began writing fiction full-time.

At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it.

Writing was something I always liked, but it wasn't a career until I was laid off from my executive position in my 30s. I started a website because I was bored, unemployed and angry.

It wasn't until I was 26 or 25 when I started sending work out to magazines.

Although I still occasionally paint and draw, my life has now been shaped by my writing.

This sounds like a cliche, but I always wanted to write. After college, I did some writing and realized very quickly that it's hard to make a living as a writer. At that point, I was more interested in fiction writing.

As a youngster, I think I said I wanted to be a journalist, but that's a disguise for being a writer.

I want to be an author.

But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.

I tell young people who ask me about a future in writing not to go into it unless they get married to someone rich.

With due apologies to Shakespeare, some people are born writers, some people achieve it after a lot of hard work, some people have a writing career thrust upon them. I am in that last group.

I knew I wanted to be a writer at 13. Before that, I told everyone I was going to be an artist.

The idea of being a novelist is really romantic, but it's kind of the same as being president of the United States - it's not gonna happen.

Writing was my first occupation, begun at age 23.