Mandy Patinkin Quotes

Whenever I'm writing a book, small details from my life always creep in.

I think as a filmmaker and as a director, you shortchange yourself if you inhibit the ability of your actor to bring their own personal experiences to the characters.

Everything can be grist for the muse. Sometimes, writers draw on personal experiences. 'Ghoul' was just that.

I started improvising the Cliff character, based on someone I grew up with.

There is always going to be a little bit of me in each character.

I never dreamed that the little ditties I wrote about annoying customers or bagel recipes would turn into a full-length musical comedy. But a very wise person told me to 'write what you know'. So I did.

To write a story, I think you really have to open yourself up to the world.

Something about your life always makes its way into your stories. That's just the nature of the beast.

I always like to write where I'm at in real life into whatever I'm working on.

I don't believe you just create a character out of thin air, there's always something of yourself you bring.

I always have a rough outline, but I'm shocked at how little I actually follow it. Those characters keep doing things that I never expected. I think if I crept up to my keyboard and peeked, they'd be talking about things behind my back. Okay, that's a little paranoid and delusional... but just a little.

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.

I always have a basic plot outline, but I like to leave some things to be decided while I write.

I just sit down and the page just comes out and I look at it and the elements that appear on that page have a lot to do with what's going on in my life.

No one knows how to write a novel until it's been written.

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

I know it may sound silly, but I think my short stories have a life and identity of their own. They crop up in all sorts of places.

There are bits of me in all my characters.

I always find stuff in my characters to relate to.

SOON was the first novel where I used a rough outline. Usually I have characters and an idea and write as a process of discovery. Like working without a net.

In writing fiction, I can be free. I can use my life. The raw material is my experiences.

I start with an idea that is no more than a paragraph long, and expand it slowly into an outline. But I'm always surprised by the directions things take when I actually start writing.

I write characters and stories that move me, and I write from the heart.

Very few of my characters are based on people I've known. It is too constricting.