Jeff Jarvis Quotes

I totally consider Fishbowl my full time job - I have to say I freaking love doing this blog. I just enjoy the medium so much; I love the fact that it requires me to read amazing stuff by hilarious and talented people and forces me to know what's going on in the world.

I find that I have about six bloggable ideas a day. I also find that writing twice as long a post doesn't increase communication, it usually decreases it. And finally, I found that people get antsy if there are unread posts in their queue.

Books come from within.

I want to start a blog.

Oh, you know what bloggers are like, they write and write and write. I don't know why, because they're not being paid.

There is no such thing as writer's block. There is only not enough information. If you can't write, learn something.

If I'm writing a story and you're reading it, or vice versa, you took time out of your day to pick up my book. I think the one thing that will kill that relationship is if you feel me condescending to you in the process. And how does that happen? Well, it happens when I know more than you do, and when I know that I know more than you do, and I'm holding it back from you. So that I can then manipulate you at the end. You know, you think about like in a dating situation how terrible that would be, it's the same thing with a book.

Books light the fire-whether it's a book that's already written, or an empty journal that needs to be filled in.

What makes me put pen to paper? You know, that's the million-dollar question. I've been writing since I've been reading. It's not a question I think that's even meant to be answered, but it's something you always seek to discover the answer to. And the process of filmmaking is one of discovery, and self-discovery at that. Pleasure... it's not exactly what I would call fun, but it's absorbing.

Sometimes I think of blogging as finger exercises for a violinist; sometimes I think of it as mulching a garden. It is incredibly useful and helpful to my "real" writing.

A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.

I usually start writing stories from tone and not from content - kind of like people who create music and invent the lyrics later on.

If I have a strong dislike for something, obviously that garners an equal amount of derision, towards me from the audience. And that's fine, as long as it's within the bounds of decency and isn't too personal in the vitriol. That's what makes the blog interesting, and that's what makes reading it interesting and that's what makes writing interesting. You don't want everyone to agree.

As an actor, it's a relatively passive job unless you're generating your own content or writing your own content. So to a certain degree you're at the mercy of what is available, what you're reading, what you become passionate about, and ultimately, what people want to hire you for.

You really can’t write unless you read. You have to know what the game is all about.

I read constantly because there is so much to learn from the writing in the world.

Start writing the things that you are reading or that you want to be published doing.

When I'm blogging, I think book writing is easier and vice versa. Writing is lonely work, and the good thing about blogging is that you have immediate feedback from commenters.

To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you.

My childhood was spent in my local library in a San Diego suburb. It's where I became a writer - by 1st becoming a reader!

A lamp can only light another lamp when it continues to burn in its own flame.

Reading, writing, teaching, learning, are all activities aimed at introducing civilizations to each other.

To aspiring writers, I would tell them that we live in a wonderful time where you're able to make your work visible, easily. If you think about it, even ten years ago or twenty years ago, there was a middle man, there was a publisher, there were studios, there was this world of rejection letters. Now, we're in a place where we have the technology and the ability to go shoot our own movies or to put stuff on YouTube or a blog, if you're a writer, or self-publish.

Read at the level at which you want to write. Reading is the nourishment that feeds the kind of writing you want to do.

I can fix a bad page. I can't fix a blank page.