Jed Mercurio Quotes

I'd rather excite the imagination of a legion of readers and make pennies from each of them than hold off for a larger chunk of change from only a handful of fans.

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.

My grand plan is that I can master having a better life by making sure I have a regular flow of songs. Then I can give myself time to tour or celebrate or write a film score.

Most of all, I love being a storyteller. And yes, I want to make a good living, but I'm not always driven by the best commercial sense.

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

I was pushing for a career in poetry and of course the received wisdom was that you would never make a living at it.

If I inherited a billion dollars and didn't have to work ever again, what would I do to fill my day? I'd paint, I'd write jokes and stories, and I'd hang out and chat to very interesting people.

I am all the time thinking about poetry and fiction and you.

Poetry, that is to say the poetic, is a primal necessity.

I invented the colors of the vowels!--A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green--I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses.

Sometimes when we're flying or in the hotel, I might run over songs, or in the bathroom.

Words become luminous when the poet's finger has passed over them its phosphorescence.

Music and the arts feed our souls, but a decent wage puts food on the table. Musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations are a potent force to fight for social justice.

You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.

I started writing seriously when I was about 12. I am always in the mood.

Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd and make the learned smile.

There is nothing like literature: I lose a cow, I write about her death, and my writing pays me enough to buy another cow.

Making up characters and places and plots, unlike fixing your plumbing or doing dishes, is anything but practical or rational. I write what needs to be written the way that seems genuinely right.

Poetry is just so emo." he said. "Oh, the pain. The pain. It always rains. In my soul.

I came out with a book called The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language. It's a book that describes how writing is a practice and how my teaching is part of that practice. I direct the writing and create books but underneath, there's always the river of practice happening. No good, no bad. Just do it.

Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don't give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don't need to, if they don't need poetry bully for them. I like the movies too. And after all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American poets, are better than the movies.

I love acting, but directing and writing have always been just as important. I started to write so many things when I was even a child. I wrote my first play when I was, like, seven years old. That was me - a writer - for years.

As a writer, I play with words all day long. I toy with them, listen for their overtones, crack them open, and try to stuff my thoughts inside.

Books are for nothing but to inspire

The writer must have a good imagination to begin with, but the imagination has to be muscular, which means it must be exercised in a disciplined way, day in and day out, by writing, failing, succeeding and revising.