Hanya Yanagihara Quotes

I feel lucky that I've been able to make a living from painting any idea that comes into my head.

I've always felt writing is an art. Publishing is a business. I felt strongly if I was going to write, I would write what I wanted to, and if the 'market' didn't respond, there was nothing I could really do about it.

Zombie books were going to be my passion projects, but certainly not pay the bills. I thought I was going to have to get a real job on a sitcom or something, and have my zombie books to remind myself I was still a writer at heart. I never thought I could actually pay my bills and write what I wanted.

I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.

I hope I'm in a position to make stuff that I really want to make as opposed to stuff that I just have to make for money reasons, or to sustain a certain marquee value.

I'm no longer dependent on the movie business to make a living. So if I want to make movies as other old guys would play golf, I can.

I'm lucky enough that financially I don't have to feel obliged to go for the bigger stuff. I like the stories and scripts to dictate if I want to do them.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

I'm fortunate in having journalism as a sideline to pay the bills, and I essentially do it in order to take as long as I want with books.

I have a teaching job that allows me to pay the rent and affords me to, frankly, write the books I want to write.

I love being a writer. I don't really want to do anything else!

I have a day job, which means my family isn't dependent on the writing income. So if I have an idea I like, I write it.

The success of 'Scrubs' allowed me to pursue anything I felt passionately about without having to worry about money. It allowed me to spend my summer work shopping my show at a nonprofit theater.

If I had sat around and waited until I had an idea to be a successful photographer, I would still be in finance.

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers.

I don't have a particular ambition in any medium. I just want to keep telling stories. If somebody pays me, also good.

I think I've been lucky enough not to have to do movie after movie after movie for financial reasons, so I've been able to live life and also make movies. I didn't have to grind them out. I could go long periods where I was living life rather than tripping over cables.

I didn't feel that my identity was caught up in being a cartoonist, and that if it stopped I'd stop.

I've tried to be more self-sufficient as I've gotten older. I'd like to not worry about whether they're going to sell my next album or book. Hell, William Blake wasn't even published in his lifetime.

It was always my dream to write for a living.

Being rich would be disastrous for me as a writer. I have always needed to write to pay the bills.

If it weren't for 'Cuckoo's Nest,' it would be very difficult for me. It gave me a cushion to live at my artistic pace and not fear I wouldn't have money to live on.

I am lucky enough not to have to take jobs unless I love the material.

When I started off as an actor, the last thing I wanted to do in the world was make money. I was under the impression, when I started off as an actor, that the more money I made, the more it would diminish from my creativity and my capacity to be an artist.

Musicians are kind of like pirates, you know? You have to be free to follow whatever your muse is, or wherever life is pulling you - especially if you aren't in, like, U2, and making millions and millions of dollars.