W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Never try to fit a target audience. Write what is true to the characters in their settings and the audience will find you.

No book that is written for an external purpose is going to be a passionately felt book for the writer or the reader. I don't see the point in doing that.

I knew what I didn't want, and I knew whatever it was going to be it had to be believable and it had to come from me and I had to drive it. The way I write is very honest and when I think of the music that I listened to growing up, I loved it because I believed it.

In my opinion, trying to guess what readers want is the wrong approach. You have to tell your story as best you can and as true to yourself as possible. You have to be honest and fair and vulnerable and foolish and brave, and not care what anyone thinks of it.

I write with all my heart

Don't write what you think people want to read. Find your voice and write about what's in your heart.

I do not think writers ought ever to sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme, or something. If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge.

The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.

It's so much easier to write for a person in your life than to write for some imagined readership, so you write something that's more intimate and true.

Don't ever write just for a trend or fad, because it's a moving target, and by the time you get your work out there, the trend or fad is gone. Dig deep; don't be afraid to write fiercely. Expose your heart.

You can play as good as you want, but you have to sing from a place of living.

If what you're writing is genuine, regardless of whether it sounds cliche or people wouldn't necessarily think it's the most brilliant metaphor in the world, it's always important to be genuine with what you're writing; at least, that's how I feel.

Sometimes a sincere moment is the most surprising thing you can write.

You can write anything you want to,--a six-act blank verse, symbolic tragedy or a vulgar short, short story. Just so that you write it with honesty and gusto, and do not try to make somebody believe that you are smarter than you are. What's the use? You can never be smarter than you are.

I attribute my good fortune to the simple fact that I have always tried to write straight from my own heart to the hearts of others.

Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.

The true writer must write not the acceptable but the true.

If I'm not passionate about it, I can't write it. I can't fake it.

Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell.

I don't think I ever worry too much about what our target audience is, what we should be releasing. I just write naturally and organically and try to write from the heart.

A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. ... A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy: true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.

If you become very self-conscious about what you are doing, you kill. You kill the character. Then it doesn't work. You have to come from a sincere place. And you don't think too much. I don't go to the hotel and I start thinking what am I going to say tomorrow and start writing things down.

For nothing reaches the heart but what is from the heart, or pierces the conscience but what comes from a living conscience

The kind of sermon which is likely to break the hearer's heart is that which first has broken the preacher's heart, and the sermon which is likely to reach the heart of the hearer is the one which has come straight from the heart of the preacher.