Jimmy Webb Quotes

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.

I've never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil.

I think being creative is incredibly difficult and painful.

I used to feel like I wasn't a good songwriter when I couldn't finish a song by myself.

I have always found writing pleasant and don't understand what people mean by 'throes of creation.'

Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.

The reason you write [songs] is because there's something you want to say that is important to you - enough to go through all the torture of writing.

I feel satisfaction at the end of the day when I've written a scene that I really like or when I write a good line of dialogue that I read out to my wife or something like that. But there's also days where it's just bloody agony and I go, 'ugh, this is such crap! Why did I think I had any talent?

It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.

It takes an awful lot of time for me to write anything. I have endless drafts, one after another; and I try out 50, 75, or a hundred variations on a single line sometimes. I work on the process of refining low-grade ore. I get maybe a couple of nu ggets of gold out of 50 tons of dirt. It is tough for me. No, I am not inspired.

The truth is, writing is this: hard and boring and occasionally great but usually not.

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.

When I have just sat down and tried to write the lyrics of a song, usually about half of it sounds like bullshit. I just have to go away from something and come back to it again later. I do a lot of editing and switching around and putting little pieces together to get the right mood and personality, and it takes me forever to get a song finished.

Writers talk about the agony of writing; I talk about the agony of not writing.

There's nothing more painful than writing.

I'm very painful to deal with when I create a shoe.

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

What I've become convinced makes a writer are the days you hate it, the days you'd rather stick those pencils in your eyes. Sometimes I almost punish myself - if I'm not going be able to write, I'm not going be able to do anything else. I just sit there and wait.

Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.

I'm envious of writers and musicians. I think it must be so difficult. Not just the frustration, but the discipline.

Sometimes every single element of a character is a torturous discovery.

Sometimes, trying to make a work of art can be very difficult and very painful.

I still remember how hard I worked on the tune of 'Raree rareeram... ;' the first tune I tried was rejected.

It takes a lot of emotional high and struggles to write songs.

Sometimes I hate writing songs. Because it hurts sometimes. I'm very emotional.