Elliott Erwitt Quotes

There are many challenges I face while working on a book. Working within deadlines and schedules is certainly one of the bigger ones for me. I want to create the best possible book I can for my readers with words and pictures - and that takes time to get it just right.

No matter how well a person writes, a successful book is a team effort involving many, many people.

There isn't an aspect of book creation I don't enjoy, and there has always been a book in my life to dream about or work on.

Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.

Publishing in a way doesn't have a lot to do with writing, and writing doesn't have a lot to do with publishing.

I grew up around books. When I first held the book and it was a substantive, tangible thing, and I thought of all the work that went into it, not just my work but everybody else's and the research and so forth, there's a sense of really have done something worthwhile.

When I write a book, I'm making it the best book I can.

Then one day I thought it would be wonderful to make a whole book, to make my text and my drawings together, and that's how I started doing children's books.

A good novel editor is invisible.

Writing a book is not easy.

I don't write to create performance material; I write to make books.

Writing a novel is not method acting and I find it easy to step out of it at cocktail hour.

Movie-making is telling a story with the best technology at your disposal.

Every writer has to figure out what works best - and often has to select and discard different tools before they find the one that fits.

Composing means you have a beginning, middle and end and a fluidity to what you're doing.

Writing novels is the most exciting.

Creating a book and creating a collection involve a lot of editing.

For me, the movie's always evolving as I'm doing it. I throw things in as we shoot, and I take things out as we go. I want to create a whole life and then select the pieces that best sort of describe it later, you know? So there's a lot of wastage when I make a film.

When I'm writing the text for a book like 'Little White Rabbit,' I read it aloud, alone, in my studio, again and again and again - because the rhythm has to be exactly right. After I get my manuscript to the point where I think it is perfect, I begin to think about what I want the art to look like.

Making books is hard work. Some books are, of course, more demanding than others.

Now I'm trying to work outside first person. I do plan to write more books.

Having spent a lot of time on sets, I was really interested in the overall storytelling aspect of shows and projects.

We talked a lot about The Best Intentions and how we could shoot certain scenes in different ways with slightly different bits of dialogue and information, so that later on, we could cut the piece more easily and it would still feel complete, even though it was shorter.

I approach film no differently than I approach a role. I want to make sure the movie is right, the characters are right, I can really bring something to it as a visionary, a storyteller. It's great to point a camera, but can you tell a story?

I guess there's a sort of cycle with writing books. There's all the researching and then the imagining and writing - which is the real job - and then there's always a period when the book comes out and you have to lift your head and venture out.