Greg Poehler Quotes

If there's one thing that lawyers know about reading documents, it's to pay attention to the footnotes. In fact, oftentimes the most important information is buried there.

The practice of the law is a perfectly distinct art.

I don't like re-writing very much. The fourth and the fifth draft - that's too much like work. There's not much inspiration about it, and the lawyerly side kicks in - being very careful and somewhat technical.

I came up professionally as a lawyer, and when you're a lawyer, writing a 50-page brief in one night is just another day at the office. You learn to make choices really quickly, and you learn how to get thoughts down very quickly.

Writing is hard. I mean, I sit there and work at it.

The writing process, it's too mysterious to try and describe.

I was just sitting on my bed in a dormitory room, and I started writing. The thing that was magic about it was that once you put down one word, you could cross it out. I figured that out right away. I put down 'mountain,' and then I'd go, 'No - 'valley.' That's better.'

Discipline is part of my professional training as a lawyer.

Writing is rewriting; rewriting is writing - from the first crossed-out word in the first sentence to the last word inserted above a caret, that most helpful handwritten stroke.

I write the paragraph, then I'm crossing out, changing words, trying to improve it. When it seems more or less OK, then I type it up because sometimes it's almost illegible, and if I wait, I might not be able to read it the next day.

So much of writing isn't the fun parts like we get to discuss. It is sitting there putting the words down.

If I were to try to describe the way in which I write, the only word I would use without qualification is 'slowly.'

I got into law school to supplement my business background. I'm not planning to practice law.

I write down portions, maybe fragments, and perhaps an imperfect view of what I'm hoping to write. Out of that, I keep trying to find exactly what I want.

To be a lawyer was too boring for me, for my personality.

On the last drafts, I focus on the words themselves, including the rub of vowels and consonants, stressed and unstressed syllables. Yet even at this stage I'm often surprised. A different ending or a new character shows up and I'm back to where I began, letting the story happen, just trying to stay out of the way.

The first draft of everything, I write longhand. One of the nice things about that is that it makes you keep going. If you write a bad sentence on the computer, then it's very tempting to go back and fidget with it and spend another 20 minutes trying to make it into a good sentence.

I think in any writing you're paying attention to detail.

I'm trying to read more dead people because I keep having to read stuff for juries and so forth.

I usually do at least a dozen drafts and progressively make more-conscious decisions. Because I've always believed stories are closer to poems than novels, I spend a lot of time on the story's larger rhythms, such as sentence and paragraph length, placement of flashbacks and dialogue.

I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose.

People read legal writing differently. When you're at the crux of a legal argument, every step is a step in the argument. The judge will see any holes. If you do that in fiction, it's too long and boring.

It would probably take me an hour to two to write it down, get the feel of it, and that's with quite a few changes. It's not really a hard thing for me to do.

I am a very linear thinker, so I write beginning to end. I write hundreds of pages per book that never make it into print.

I don't write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing.