The writer is the duelist who never fights at the stated hour, who gathers up an insult, like another curious object, a collector's item, spreads it out on his desk later, and then engages in a duel with it verbally. Some people call it weakness. I c...
Writing is such an industry now. In many ways, that's a good thing, in that it removes all the muse-like mystique and makes it a plain old job, accessible to everyone. But with industry comes jargon. I was aware that jargon was starting to fill those...
An author needs a lot more than one person to succumb to his literary seductive charms, but, like Saul, he must realize that he doesn't have to--and indeed cannot--capture the hearts of every possible reader out there. No matter who the writer, his i...
The French fairy tale writers were so popular and prolific that when their stories were eventually collected in the 18th century, they filled forty–one volumes of a massive publication called the . Charles Perrault is the French fairy tale writer w...
It galls me that seeking out the seedy, the sordid, the sexual, and the deviant is the expected (if not altogether acceptable) behavior of male writers; it would surely benefit me, as a writer, if I had the courage to seek out more of the seedy, the ...
Writers possess magic. It's in their words. They compose phrases as powerful as incantations, creating illusions in the minds of readers. These spells make eyes envision things that aren't real; they make hearts feel things that aren't actual. A writ...
In my experience, writers tend to be really good at the inside of their own heads and imaginary people, and a lot less good at the stuff going on outside, which means that quite often if you flirt with us we will completely fail to notice, leaving ev...
C. K. Dexter Haven: Orange juice, certainly. Tracy Lord: Don't tell me you've forsaken your beloved whisky and whiskies. C. K. Dexter Haven: No-no-no-no. I've just changed their colour, that's all. I'm going for the pale pastel shades now. They're mo...
The American people are frustrated.
Gene Hackman is one of the great American actors of all time.
Regis has a great rapport with the American public.
In 1925 Woolf began an affair with Sackville-West, who was married to Harold Nicolson, the diplomat and writer, and the development of their close relationship, which does not seem to have undermined either woman’s marriage, coincided with Woolf �...
Maybe that's when bad scripts are written, when you choose the theme first. I consider that I've something to say when I've thought of a person, a moment, a single beat of the heart, that I think is true and interesting, and therefore should be seen.
Steven wrote to me today, saying, 'Don't you feel like sticking your head out of the window and yelling, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!!!"' Yes, absolutely. Solidarity. Fear is always the same. Different worries with different scripts, but the same ba...
Yet while Vidal writes best about power, politics, and history White’s strengths are sex, art and – sometimes – love. Each tends to stumble when he enters the other’s domain.
Seventies macho was both a look – moustache, jeans, leather jacket – and an attitude – cool, heartless, virile – that were reactions against the old-style homosexuality of too much art and too much emotion.
The very nature of marriage means saying yes before you know what it will cost. Though you may say the “I do” of the wedding ritual in all sincerity, it is the testing of that vow over time that makes you married.
If you let yourself abandon the I-should-know-this-already attitude and simply accept your ignorance without giving yourself a hard time about it, then you can learn whatever it is you need to learn.
Love takes courage, if you’re doing it right. Not the kind of courage a soldier has, but the kind of courage a writer has. Say, I’m a writer, and I’m a lover—therefore I must be courageous.
There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer who has to go into the streets is a writer who does not know the streets. . . when you leave your typewriter you leave your machine gun and the rats come pouring through.
There are as many ways to discover your story as there are to trip over a dog in the kitchen--and some of them feel about as planned.
