Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

I write from real life. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and a collector of stories. I record bits of overheard dialogue.

Fiction can either be a mirror reflecting you back to yourself or it can be a clean pane of glass looking on the outside.

Writers, not psychiatrists, are the true interpreters of the human mind and heart, and we have been at it for a very long time.

All literature is gossip.

It's not just that reporting gives you a bigger slice of life, gives - lends verisimilitude to what you are doing - it's that it feeds the imagination.

I always write from a personal place - whether it be about my friends or myself or a story that I heard.

Bigger stories are made out of longer acquaintance with fact and character, but I also love the tiny stories in which almost everything has to be inferred and imagined.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

I write and I read, and I write and read my way into and out of ideas and life. And that's what we do. That's what storytellers do.

I certainly want to continue to write in a way that's intimate.

Something people say about acting is that acting is listening. But I think that writing is listening, too. That you really have to listen to what are they saying and what they're communicating to you. And so, a lot of it is just getting stuff down.

I look for stories everywhere.

When reading fiction, we cannot automatically assume that what we read is fact.

I love telling stories. I don't really think in terms of clear 'aims.'

To me, fiction is the single best way there is - to me, it's the most profound way - of dealing with questions that have no answers.

I like to write about stories and life experiences of me, the people around us, and just the things I see on the telly without overcomplicating things.

I remember how as I kid I would love stories of every kind - whether they were narrated in school or what I read in books. Storytelling would always appeal to me, I would take part in poetry reciting, dramatics, choreography and debates. There was this fascination for performance, which finally culminated in a professional sphere.

We're constantly trying to find the best way to tell the stories that we want.

I think the most important quality for a writer to have is empathy.

For me, the best moments in storytelling are the ones where I feel I'm discovering something.

A novel is no mere assemblage of gears; it is a wild and living being. And how are you to discern the intentions of a creature - to discover its true nature - other than by close and respectful observation?

We're all storytellers in this business, and I personally love to sit back and watch someone tell a story. If it's done well, there's nothing like it. It's pure.

A lot of things that I write about have happened to people around me, if not necessarily to me or in the organizations I've worked in. Having said that, it's fiction and has a lot to do with my imagination and creativity.

I enjoy stories that can spark a conversation.

I just try to tell a story rather than present an open diary to the world.