John Mortimer Quotes

I've heard writers talk about "discovering a voice," but for me that wasn't a problem. There were so many voices that I didn't know where to start.

I'm not very good at sounding like other people. When you're going through your 20's and trying to get a break and that kind of thing, and you're trying to do something that sounds like film music, your idea of what it would be, it never really worked out for me and it's only really when I learned to trust the fact that I could only really sound like me.

Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.

I'm not an Expressionist. I love to look at de Kooning, but I've got this kind of secret life, and that is something that pleases me. I have to try and make something out of it.

Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.

But I still don't have a clear idea of what my voice is.

The whole point in developing your own style is to find your own voice.

I like the idea that paintings are not representations of an artist's psyche. Making the paintings is what gives the artist her psyche in the first place.

I guess that in this process of trying to incorporate or to be faithful to the films I admire so much, that's how I start to find my own voice. The admiration I have for filmmakers, this gratitude, perhaps that's my only way to become specific.

The writer needs to react to his or her own internal universe, to his or her own point of view. If he or she doesn't have a personal point of view, it's impossible to be a creator.

In terms of the feeling of the piece, I cant think about what people are gonna think about it, what are the critics gonna say, I'm trying to bring some resolution, and realize that myself. It's a struggle; it's a process that gets us this.

Who knows better than artists how much ugliness there is on the way to beauty, how many ghastly, mortifying missteps, how many days of granitic blockheadedness and dismaying ineptitude there is on the way to accomplishment, how partial all accomplishment is, how incomplete?

I still haven't made a film that defines who I am.

I don't know if there is any one secret to successful writing, but one important step is to move beyond imitation and discover what you can write that no one else can - that is, find out who you are and write that in an appropriate narrative and style.

I think that I've just kind of found my niche, if that makes sense. I still write the same, but I feel like I've found what separates me, and I always try to stay in that when I write. It took me a long time to discover that, so I try to be protective.

The most important thing for me as an artist is having an identity.

Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.

It is almost impossible to reconcile self expression with the creative act.

The problem turned out to be that I never was that kind of an artist.

I experimented and explored ways to find my own niche in Nashville, and I was having trouble with it for a while because stylistically, I didn't feel like I necessarily fit in.

For all creative people, that's sort of everyone's journey. You feel something inside, and it takes a while to figure out what that looks like and what your voice is.

The hardest part is telling one's story. Once the story is on the page, the rest will come.

I think around 2015 and 2016 I ended up in an identity crisis, artistically. I didn't know what direction I was going in. I'm a perfectionist and I want to be truthful to my beliefs, if you know what I mean.

I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.

Making art in America is about saving one's soul.