I often put any project I write in a different decade just to roll the thought around in my head. There's a thriller I've written that I think would be nice to set in the '70s or '80s, just to take cell phones away from the movie. There's nothing lik...
My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a novelist were long, always plotted, novels - not just Victorian novels, but also those of my New England ancestors: Herman ...
I'm one of those people who has always struggled with emotions and revealing them. When my dog Orson died, I did this very male thing of 'It's just a dog and I'll just move on.' I was very slow to grasp the emotion. But Orson is the reason I started ...
Cinema is a visual language, and you're always looking for visual metaphors for things. You know, if I was writing a play about Howard Hughes, I could have him give a monologue about how he's terrified to touch a doorknob. But on screen, you know, wo...
I write simply because I hear voices of people in my head who won't give me peace until I convey their stories to the rest of the world. Seriously. They've always been with me. While other girls played with dolls, and my brothers with Hot Wheels, I w...
We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That's why we paint, that's why we dare to love someon...
I started writing songs when I was real young, when I was 3 years old. The piano spoke to me - I don't remember when I wasn't playing piano. My second grade talent show was the first time I performed my own thing. I dressed up as Dracula and played a...
I'm not confident, and yet I'm oddly confident. You have to have a certain amount of ego to be a writer in the first place, and to write things that might be controversial. I've wasted a lot of time worrying about it: am I tough enough to do it? Well...
An evil fate has deprived me of the full use of my right hand, so that I am not able to play my compositions as I feel them. The trouble with my hand is that certain fingers have become so weak, probably through writing and playing too much at one ti...
[subtitled version] [the students are writing an examination] Pépinot enfant: Leclerc! Leclerc: What? Pépinot enfant: Are we still friends? Leclerc: Sure, why? Pépinot enfant: How much is 5 plus 3? Leclerc: 53. Pépinot enfant: You sure? Leclerc: ...
[At the gravesite of his father] Ratso Rizzo: He was even dumber than you. He couldn't even write his own name. "X," that's what it ought to say on that goddamn headstone, one big lousy "X". Just like our dump. Condemned by order of City Hall.
[King is writing a letter to his girlfriend] Francis: It ain't D-E-R-E, it's D-E-A-R. And "Sarah" ain't got no two R's, King. Damn, you dumb! King: It don't make no difference. She know what I mean. She don't read too good nohow.
Ryad: [letter to Malik] It was great getting your letter. First, I hear from you. Second, I see you've made a lot of fucking progress. You write like a pro and I'm glad. At least I served a purpose. I can tell you now, it was no piece of cake.
Joe Gillis: Tell her, Max. C'mon, do her that favor. Tell her there isn't going to be any picture. Tell her there are no fan letters other than the ones you write. Norma Desmond: It's not true! Max! Max Von Mayerling: Madame is the greatest star of t...
Album sales have collapsed, with few artists making money from albums; touring is more lucrative. But I'm 53 now and won't be able to tour forever, so a logical step is to get into writing film scores. Trouble is, you need to be somewhere which has a...
When I was in college at Carnegie Mellon, I wanted to be a chemist. So I became one. I worked in a laboratory and went to graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh. Then I taught science at a private girls' school. I had three children and wait...
I was writing full time after quitting a job as a high school English teacher, and I hadn't been able to sell anything, and my bank account was down to zero, and all of my friends were like 'What are you doing in the basement, when are you going to g...
I would love to continue in music, with writing... but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go g...
Way back in the day, when I first started and had delusions of adequacy as a cartoonist, I would listen to music. When I switched to a career as a writer, I would try to listen to music, but if the songs had lyrics they would get in the way of the wo...
In a serious relationship, I will definitely write music about a guy. I'm totally into mix tapes and I'm all about small little things. I'll drop by their door and just leave a gift or come over if they're sick and make them chicken noodle soup and r...
Before I was 12 years old, I had no interest in music; I was just into football. Then I heard Don McLean's 'Vincent' come on at the end of an episode of 'The Simpsons.' You know when you hear something and you don't understand why you like it, you ju...
