Sean Penn Quotes

People have asked me a lot, 'What comes first? The pictures or the story? The story or the picture?' It's hard to describe because often they seem to come at the same time. I'm seeing images while I'm thinking of the story.

If you've written it you know exactly; whoever you're playing if you've written it you already know it. As a matter of fact, you've already made the movie if you wrote it. You've made it in your head.

It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.'

I don't start writing a script until I can see it all in my head, then it's a matter of getting it down in white heat.

As a writer, I absorb stories, allow them to churn within my own head and heart - often for years - until I find a way of telling them that fits both my time and temperament.

What's funny about that is when I was writing Twilight just for myself and not thinking of it as a book, I was not thinking about publishing, and yet at the same time I was casting it in my head. Because when I read books, I see them very visually.

Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.

It's like these ideas, these characters, kind of bubble up inside me, and one day they're not there, and the next day they are there. They're alive, and they're whispering in my head and all that stuff, and I want to write about those things.

When you're drawing something, you kind of run a movie in your head. You might close your eyes or stare into the distance and kind of see a movie unfolding and, you know, grab a certain moment or think, 'Oh, yeah, that's when we need just the point that he appears around the corner but just as she's getting into the car,' you know?

Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.

I don't tend to cast roles in my head because I spend so much time with these characters and the drawings that they're complete in themselves, you know what I mean?

I use a lot of film images, analogies, and imagination.

You are always drawing from your personal life and using your imagination to fill in the blanks.

The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it.

I start by mulling a question and before I know it, a whole drama is unfolding in my head. Often, an idea sticks before I know what I'm going to do with it.

Writing is always a process of discovery—I never know the end, or even the events on the next page, until they happen. There’s a constant interplay between the imagining and shaping of the story.

'The Lake of Dreams' grew gradually, over many years, elements and ideas accruing until they gained enough critical mass to become a novel.

Blank paper has always inspired me.

You can't wait for someone to give you a show. That can't be the first time you're writing and drawing a character.

I throw everything I have into whatever story I'm writing - and so there's something immensely gratifying about finishing one piece and then starting fresh with a new setting, time period and cast of characters, getting to see the world through a completely different lens each time.

The cool thing about being a songwriter, or a writer, I guess, in general, you can take on a lot of different things, experience a lot of different things, just by writing about them.

You write a book, and after 50 pages you think it's about one thing, and then you write another hundred and you realize it's about something else, and then by the time you're done, you can look back and say, 'Oh, this is what it's about.'

I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.

I don't have a drawer full of ideas. I kind of look around and take notes and wonder what could actually be a whole movie. And each time, I think I'm going to do it more commercial this time; I'm going to get a big budget and make it. But I always come up with some small idea.

Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction.