Oliver North Quotes

You've got to live life to write a book about it.

The excitement of wading into 'reality' and just finding out what happens - and then the challenge of selecting those things that happened and shaping them in the editing into a narrative that will have appeal and be engaging - is a great, great thrill.

Dig into life with wild roving abandon, opening your mind to the delicious possibilities that perplex the mind, entice the heart, and excite the spirit.

Each person's life is a story that is telling itself in the living.

I'm writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn't pay any attention at all. Sometimes it's me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it's not me at all.

I've always been spontaneous and outgoing... I've tried lots of things so I've got some good life experiences, which is great 'cause it means I've got lots of material to work with as an actor.

You can't write about stuff you don't know about. You have to live it. You have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Live life to be a good songwriter.

I've been a storyteller all my life. When I was in high school, I used to amuse myself by driving through the woods at night and see how long it would be before I scared the pants off my friends - and if I could do it before I scared myself.

You don't just have a story - you're a story in the making, and you never know what the next chapter's going to be. That's what makes it exciting.

The real world has always been far more exciting and funny and dangerous to me than anything somebody could conjure up sitting in front of a computer.

When I started writing and illustrating, I knew little of classic children's literature. My stories came from real life, from my concerns about what was happening in the world.

And you know, when you take on something like this, you read a book like this, you know that it's going to be an adventure. That's part of what draws you to it.

My life. The life I'm living that's where all my inspiration comes from. Real life experiences.

Write what you know.

I write in order to bear witness to life.

For the things that I've been involved in, most of it has really been - it's been a mixture of action and then drama.

I'm interested in stories. I think I'm a bit of a pathfinder.

I say that I can't make anything up. I think of myself as a collage artist. I'm cutting and pasting memories of my life. And I say, I have to live a life in order to tell a life. I would prefer to tell it because telling you're always in control, you're like God.

I never set out to write literature; I set out to tell stories. And some of my work may be very raunchy and very bloodthirsty - but life, for me, is a violent thing.

If you set your story in Rome, Ireland or Sheboygan, for that matter, go there. If you're broke, set it in the town where you live, or where you grew up.

I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore.

For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.

I've been falsely accused of drawing too much from real life. But I am a petty thief - I take little things. And, I mean, I can hardly write 10 words before I start to make things up. I start to invent, because that's what I want to do. I'm running away to an invented place.

I wanted to make sure that 'Up' wasn't a 3D movie about a man who sails his house to South America. It's a movie about an old man who sails his house to South America that also happens to be in 3D. So the first thing is always the story.

Storytelling is not what I do for a living - it is how I do all that I do while I am living.