Paul Beatty Quotes

I am a writer. It's like a third arm to me.

Writing has always been an incredible outlet for me to feel like I have a voice, even when sometimes I was the only one reading my work. It has been a way for me to unlock my imagination. That's when the world becomes yours, after all.

I never thought I could write this much and now that it's coming to an end, I feel sad that I have to stop, sort of the way you feel at the end of a really good book and you know you're going to miss the main character. But in this case, the main character is me! Myself. Joe (formerly JoDan) Bunch. —Joe Bunch

For me, writing is a parenthesis where I can make sense of life.

I really don't feel that writing is therapy.

Writing gave me the world.

Writing is so entwined with my being that I can't imagine a life without it.

That's why writing is important to me. Time goes past, and you've been somewhere and come back that hasn't hurt you, and you've been somebody else.

Writing is a way of living. It doesn't quite matter that there are too many books for the number of readers in the world to read them. It's a way of being alive for the writer.

I wrote poetry and short stories. I would send them to magazines; they wouldn't get in. But short stories are how I found philosophy and how I'd understand the world.

[Writing] totally changed my life. It gave me my life. Everything opened up.

Most things I go through I have to write about.

For me, life is writing and I can do it anywhere. It doesn't matter where I am. I listen. I write. I live.

I find myself really feeling like it's possible that maybe the greater contribution I'm going to be able to make through this next phase of my life might be as a writer writing wonderful parts for women, or even writing wonderful parts for myself, you know?

I just started to write because I was fed up of not seeing the stories that I wanted, so I was like 'Stop moaning and write something.'

Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

Writing, for all that it's harder than nursing ever was, is also more joyous and more fun and a lot less dangerous. And the major themes of my life have become the major themes of my writing, too - so it has all worked out pretty well.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

I love writing and directing because it's great therapy. Every project I've done, there's been a personal connection.

As a writer, I wouldn't know how to not take things out of my life.

I like to write when I feel I'm the real me.

I've been a story-teller all my life but I realized it only recently.

I've been writing my entire life, and I'll always write.

It's absolutely essential to my life. I don't know what I would do if I didn't write.