Troy Duffy Quotes

The biggest difference in writing a sequel is that now there are expectations. But also - and this is the awesome part - now there are fans, too!

I never actually plan sequels. They demand to be done.

If I sit down to write a young-adult novel, then I'm going to write either to the punch-pulling expectation of what I can't do, or I'm going to go the other way and think about what can I sneak in to be 'down with the kids' - which would be excruciating.

Limitations, be they practical or arbitrary, force artists to dig more deeply instead of settling for easy answers.

No matter how many books you've written, whenever you sit down to write a new book, you always feel the same challenge - how do you shape this story into a book that people are going to love.

I know now why I stopped writing short stories. It was at the point when I recognised how difficult they were.

Writing has never been an intentional endeavor to me. I know a lot of people have experiences and then sit down and try to sort them out through song, but whenever I sit down to write, it comes out hackneyed or overly saccharine.

'Monstress' has been hard because I want to keep writing longer, but I can't.

There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.

So many people seem to imagine that because the actual tools of writing are easily accessible, it is less difficult than the other arts. This is entirely an illusion.

Every story teaches me how to write it. Unfortunately, it doesn't teach me how to write the next one.

Don't be married to a line or verse if it can't rhyme, fit the meter, or doesn't fit the outline.

As an artist, comfort can be your worst enemy.

I like working in television because it's an evolving story that you tell. That's also one of the things I don't like about it, too. Because sometimes it's hard, and just when I think I've nailed something, it changes or we have to change it or change the joke or the character is evolving in a way that I don't have control over.

When I don't make any progress, it is because I have bumped into the wall of language. Then I draw back with a bloody head. And would like to go on.

It's always a challenge to make an independent film. It's always a challenge to make a low budget film.

It's impossible to represent a saint [in Art]. It becomes boring. Perhaps because he is, like the Saturday Evening Post people, inthe position of having almost infinitely free will.

There's something grueling but very appealing about rough, to-the-bone material in a low budget context. There's less between you and the material. There are less people. There is less time. There's often less technology. You have to concentrate very intensely, and you jump in a little deeper because there's nothing in your way... but there are challenges.

I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.

Writing is something that you can never do as well as it can be done. It is a perpetual challenge and it is more difficult than anything else that I have ever done.

I love to play with language; make it do tricks, turn a word inside out to see if it's got a hidden meaning tucked away somewhere, or perhaps find that it's capable of an extra entendre or two. . . . Plotting is nothing I did, or do, naturally. It is the hardest part of the writing process. No matter how many times you plot a script successfully, the next one, representing new and uncharted territory, convinces you that you really don't know how to do it at all.

I feel very strongly about the legacy of Ghost and I'm the next part of that chapter and hopefully a very long and continuing story through the franchise of Ghost in the Shell which is already a huge universe. So yes, I felt pressure, but you always feel pressure as an artist creatively in any endeavour you do, so you just have to do the best that you can do and then hope that is successful.

I like doing whatever interests me. It's a challenge for me to try to make good comics out of any genre I tackle. I trust my instincts in getting me through the more difficult genres for modern readers, like violent crime or horror stories.

A book unwritten is a delightful universe of infinite possibilities. Set down one word, however, and it immediately becomes earthbound. Set down one sentence and it’s halfway to being just like every other bloody book that’s ever been written.

Writing a novel in general is like trying to reach a mountain top you'll never quite reach - so you try again and maybe get a little closer.