James Fenton Quotes

Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay.

I understand it's my role to realize people's dreams. I'm O.K. with that so long as my songs are my own. No one can take my songs away from me.

A script like 'Nightcrawler' gives me an opportunity to truly realize a vision that's mine, which is exciting.

When you're writing something to direct, you just write exactly what you're going to do. You don't have to write it in a way for other people to understand or interpret.

The best author is a dead author, because he's out of your way and you own the play. Take what he has given you and use it for what you need.

Once a book is published, it no longer belongs to me. My creative task is done. The work now belongs to the creative mind of my readers. I had my turn to make of it what I would, now it is their turn.

I was the enemy of the major studio. I believed in one man - one film. I believed one man should make the film. And I believed the director should be that one man. One man should do it - I didn't give a damn who. I just couldn't accept art as a committee. I could only accept art as an extension of an individual.

Gertrude Stein said, "I write for myself and strangers." I would say I write for myself, strangers and the great dead.

That's the fine balance of a fiction writer...to be able to give your characters enough freedom to surprise you and yet still maintain some kind of artistic control.

For right now, I'd like to tell stories that I want to tell. I haven't wanted to use someone else's material yet, but I would with the show. It's become an integral enough part of me now, that I could definitely tell a story in this.

It's a pretty great thing to have a record that at the end of the day you're not totally sick of and you're actually proud of. We're pretty lucky, because a lot of bands come out with their first record on a label and they're forced to make decisions they might not stand behind because someone's telling them it's a good idea. We didn't have to do that. I think that's one of the things I'm most thankful for.

You're the artist - you make the music that you want to make.

I used to work in TV and quit the job because I couldn't do it any more. I quite like taking my time over a film, five years is how long it takes me to work something out. And when you just do quick turnover, turnaround, I'm literally this is driving me mad, I want to find another living. I'll just have to find a creative way to tell the story.

It's not necessarily that satisfying getting monetary success, but sometimes it keeps the door open to make what you want to make.

I want to reiterate that my understanding of the poem is not the poem's core, true meaning. Once a poem goes out into the world, the poet is just one more reader.

A movie is kind of like being the captain of a ship, which is nice, but when I perform by myself it's just surfing on the water and nobody really knows what happens.

It's hard enough for me to write what I want to write without me trying to write what you say they want me to write which I don't want to write.

Making music is so much more self-motivated. It's my own music. It's my own time. I don't have a team around me that's helped me make everything.

The creative writer uses his life as well as being its victim; he can control, in his work, the self-presentation that in actuality is at the mercy of a thousand accidents.

When I'm making my music, I'm writing it, I'm producing it, I'm playing all the instruments, I'm performing. It's my own world where I do what I feel, and nobody tells me anything.

Every garden-maker should be an artist along his own lines. That is the only possible way to create a garden, irrespective of size or wealth.

The writing is the most important bit, and performing it is just closing the circle because I'm less likely to screw it up than anyone else.

I feel like making music because - and this has much to do with the way I was able to make this record - there's more of myself in it.

Sappho survives, because we sing her songs; And Eschylus, because we read his plays!

I've worked with Woody Allen twice and he was like, "Whatever you want to change, it's up to you. If you want to change the words, make them your own."