Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I don't want to speak too disparagingly of my generation (actually I do, we had a chance to change the world and opted for the Home Shopping Network instead), but there was a view among the student writers I knew at that time that good writing came spontaneously, in an uprush of feeling that had to be caught at once; when you were building that all-important stairway to heaven, you couldn't just stand around with your hammer in your hand.

The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up.

I was in a crazy, private, awesome bubble again, and that's when I started to write.

When the initial little impulse comes it just tends to come. I wake up in the middle of the night, or I'll be swimming in the pool with my kids and just think, "Can't forget that one." Then there's the more organized side of the brain, which is when I choose to work on them. I've learned through a bunch of mentors how to demarcate the different times for your writing process. I keep multiple projects going at once and there's a time when no matter what you're doing, you have to stop and write it because it's coming.

People seemed to think, you get to a certain age or you get married or you, you're comfortable. And so now there's nothing to write about: that angst is gone. The youthful angst. And that just hasn't happened with me.

Inspiration does not always precede the act of writing; it often follows it.

I have a huge music library and deliberately choose the piece of music to match the piece I'm writing. So, every book I write has its own "soundtrack."

I never know when I sit down, just what I am going to write. I make no plan; it just comes, and I don't know where it comes from.

The conscious mind is the editor, and the subconscious mind is the writer. And the joy of writing, when you're writing from your subconscious, is beautiful - it's thrilling. When you're editing, which is your conscious mind, it's like torture.

I would still give my left ball to write anything as good as OK Computer.

Writing in the incurable itch that possesses many.

A playwright... is... the litmus paper of the arts. He's got to be, because if he isn't working on the same wave length as the audience, no one would know what in hell he was talking about.

There's this whole idea that you've got the blues and you're going to write. Bullshit. When I feel really bad, all I want to do is sit in front of the TV with the remote control and check out.

Whether you are inspired or not, the only way to unlock your creativity, is to start writing.

It varies, I don't think there is any one set way of writing songs or coming up with ideas, it comes in so many ways you know.

The best visual book I can think of is Lynda Barry's What It Is, but although I refer to it all the time it's not a creative writing book per se.

A picture can say 1000 words but it can also inspire you to write 1000 more.

I sip the Dom P watching Gandhi til I'm charged - writing in my book of rhymes, all the words past the margin

I feel so fortunate to get paid to be an actor. I pinch myself. I get it from writing, I get it from baking, gardening... I sort of open myself to the creative flow, which is hard to do, by the way.

I don't write as much now as I used to, but I write. The lines still come, maybe periodically, and I'll go through these little bursts of time where I write a lot of things then a long period of time where maybe I don't write anything. Or these lines will come into my head and I'll write 'em down in a little book, just little sets of lines, but I won't try to make stories or poems out of them. I'm doing a lot of that now, just the lines.

If you do not love what you do, if you are not appropriately grateful for the chance to create something magical each time you sit down at the computer or with a pencil and paper in hand, somewhere along the way your writing will betray you.

They say to just write about what's happening in your backyard because that's where you find the most creativity. It's in the DNA of the show. There's no question.

Some stories wait their turn to be told, others just tap you on the shoulder and insist you tell them.

I always wanted to be in the world of entertainment. I just love the idea of an audience being happy with what I am doing. Writing is showbusiness for shy people. That's how I see it.

I don't choose what I compose. It chooses me.