Allen Ginsberg Quotes

That first writing session, what Dan Hill calls a creative blind date, is always a real challenge, and you bring that back to your partner when you return to writing with them.

It's interesting to see what people who you find talented come up with, so you work with them. Sometimes ideas come along quicker cause they'll come up with something and you'll be like, "It would have taken me forever to get to that point!" Because you're talking together, your brains are moving faster.

One, we [with Alison McGhee] laugh a lot - that was great. Two, I enjoy writing, but it's a lonely undertaking. To have someone in the room with me is an absolute delight and makes it seem less impossible. It became a kind of comforting, joyful process.

Our rule was that we [with Kate DiCamillo] would write everything together, literally every word.

We had so much fun together as friends that I suggested we [with Kate DiCamillo] write a book together.

I think if I was ever really going to be more serious about writing I'd have to try and find some way to do it with other people. I do find the silence kind of eerie.

I've never worked with a co-author before [Alison McGhee]. Writing for me is a pretty scary thing, so it was a huge comfort to have someone in the room working with me. It became less like work and more like play.

What we [writers] do might be done in solitude and with great desperation, but it tends to produce exactly the opposite. It tends to produce community and in many people hope and joy.

Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy.

When I was writing my first draft, and feeling grandiose, I e-mailed an artist/clothing designer I know and suggested we collaborate on a fashion line inspired by the outfits my characters wore. I regret that we never did that.

I use an IBM Thinkpad. I just use it like a typewriter, but when I started using it in 1987, I thought I won't be able to write anymore, so I thought I'd go back to the typewriter. But you couldn't go back to the typewriter after using the computer.

Alice and I, we'd met before, but we were able to kind of sit and chat on the set of Dark Shadows, and talk about maybe writing some songs together. We started doing that, and then one thing led to another and it became this Vampire project - because he was telling stories about all those days, which were fascinating.

Obviously I love writing with Katy [Pery], I feel like we're the same person when we write together. Even though we fight a lot, we fight over every line and we pull each other's hair and we cat-fight all the time, it's always worth it in the end.

Music allows the great opportunity to play with people you love.

The nuts and bolts of shooting a film and writing a film are still really difficult. But what makes it easier is the fact that you know you're going to go to work with your best mate.

Last season when I was on set...for some reason I had The Battle Hymn of the Republic in my head but I didn't know all the words. It was one of those songs you had to learn when you were younger. It wasn't as important for people raised in the 80's and 90's as it was to people raised in the 50's, 60's and 70's so when I started singing "My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord," Jane [Fonda] heard me singing it and started singing the rest of it. Suddenly everyone on set everyone was singing. That's just something I can keep in my heart forever.

I'm one that likes to collaborate. I love feeding off the creative energy, and it only makes me better.

Without a reader, I cannot write. It's like a kiss: they cannot be done alone.

When I sit down at the typewriter, I write. Someone once asked me if I had a fixed routine before I start, like setting up exercises, sharpening pencils, or having a drink of orange juice. I said, "No, the only thing I do before I start writing is to make sure that I'm close enough to the typewriter to reach the keys."

What I love about making movies is that it's a collaboration. It's one of the most rewarding things, to create something and have someone show you something that you didn't see, and vice versa.

I don't believe in originality in art. I think we exist on this earth to inspire each other, through our actions, through our deeds, and through who we are. We're always borrowing.

A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it's all you've got, unless you're brilliant and can write totally in the now.

Becoming the reader is the essence of becoming a writer.

If you are a good editor, your relationship with every writer is different.

I think Gram did his best work in co-writes. Sometimes when you're working with one other person, it's such a magical thing. You're editing each other and you're trying to create that one spark.