Colin Quinn Quotes

The real trouble with the writing game is that no general rule can be worked out for uniform guidance, and this applies to sales as well as to writing.

The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.

My job is to put words together and tell a story. If that doesn't work for you, it's not a war crime.

Writing tips are like mini skirts. Sometimes they fit perfectly, sometimes they make you cry, and sometimes you can reuse the material and sew yourself a pillow or something.

I prefer writing originals.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

I write. This is what I do. My job is to sit down with my vocabulary, select words, and decide what order they should be placed in an attempt to keep someone's attention and perhaps provide them with a laugh or two along the way.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

Somebody said writing is easy, you just sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. It depends on the book. Some, I have to do quite a lot of research, which I like. Others are much closer to me.

The elegance and the quality - the talent is always in the literature. I start with the word and I base everything on that. It doesn't make any difference to me.

I never wanted to make a graphic novel. As soon as you become a 'writer,' you have to be intelligent all the time... I like the fact that I have the right once in a while to say silly things.

I never know what I'm going to write next, and when I think I do I usually turn out to be mistaken.

I find that screenwriting is at best kind of a hackwork in some ways.

Creating fantasy is a very personal thing, but you can't take the process too personally.

There are no rules and regulations for perfect composition. If there were we would be able to put all the information into a computer and would come out with a masterpiece. We know that's impossible. You have to compose by the seat of your pants.

When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it.

If you're going to write a good book, you have to make mistakes and you have to not be so cautious all the time.

As writers, we can't predict who might come along who might find our offerings valuable.

I'm an author who likes assignments, who needs suggestions, ideas I would never have thought of otherwise - then something happens inside my alien head. Other people have to decide whether or not I'm a good writer, but I do have the ability to write in different styles.

I'm of the ilk of writers that feels you have to be open to the inspiration.

If you give me a typewriter and I'm having a good day, I can write a scene that will astonish its readers. That will perhaps make them laugh, perhaps make them cry - that will have some emotional clout to it. It doesn't cost much to do that.

If you're a writer, you know there are ways in which we don't know what we're doing at all. We're working out mysteries in a sort of poetic realm, and hoping that if a story is honest, if you're dragging the deep truth out of yourself, then something good and profound might come out of it.

I'm always writing. A friend of mine once said, 'You avoid re-writing by writing.' Which is kind of a good point, because re-writing seems to be mostly about craft, and writing is just, like, getting out your passion on a piece of paper.

A book comes and says, 'Write me.' My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate.

I like writing my own material - I'm pretty good at it.