The nation that complacently and fearfully allows its artists and writers to become suspected rather than respected is no longer regarded as a nation possessed with humor or depth.
It seems disingenuous to ask a writer why she, or he, is writing about a violent subject when the world and history are filled with violence.
I tend to like to read history - recent history, because I find that much more intriguing than just a writer's imagination.
There may be something to the suggestion about the pace of technological change intimidating writers, though - it's been awfully hard to keep ahead of real developments.
I might add that you change as a person as you grow older, so you change as a writer, too.
I always think that good writers should be growing up on the brink of death - it really lets them see mortality very clearly.
I've told several writers this, and, again, I get back to it, but if you want to make God smile, tell him your plans.
But I was, and still am, an avid reader and so when I first started I chose to photograph many of the great writers in this country to try and earn a living.
'21 Jump Street' is great. I just made that, and produced it and was a writer on it. It's starring myself and Channing Tatum, and maybe some surprise guests.
The great thing about being a writer is that you have a long, perhaps frighteningly long time in which to do your work.
I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
But Racine's extraordinary powers as a writer become still more obvious when we consider that besides being a great poet he is also a great psychologist.
I gave Joss Whedon and Judd Apatow their first writing jobs, as well as many other untried writers who went on to great success.
I knew Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were really talented. As actors, they were both studly young men, and they had great writers' chops.
Every good writer or filmmaker has something eating at them, right? That they can't quite get off their back . And so your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions.
Some of the most untidy writers have also been the most productive. Iris Murdoch, for instance, wrote a good 30 books in a house strewn with rubbish.
I find that with any good run on a show with good writers, they put something on paper, and you put something back on film, and that affects what they put on the paper the next time.
Letters have to pass two tests before they can be classed as good: they must express the personality both of the writer and of the recipient.
A good writer can set a thriller anywhere and make it convincing: the trick is to evoke the setting in such a way that it highlights the crime or unsettles the reader.
There aren't enough good roles for strong women. I wish we had more female writers. Most of the female characters you see in films today are the 'poor heartbroken girl.'
I always think the insecurity is going to go away, but it's always there. Only bad writers think they're good.
