One of the things I learnt over the years is that there is a craft to writing, like there is a craft to acting. I hadn't done my apprenticeship as a writer. I did try to be a writer for hire but I'm not any good at it.
I don't know about other writers, but for myself, to write I must be relatively quiet - it's very difficult to write with the telephone and the doorbell ringing and conversation going on; I'm not that good a writer to write through all that!
There is always a certain leap of faith that editors have made with their nonfiction writers. If the trust is broken, things can get very embarrassing for the writers and the publisher.
Nowadays they have 12 directors and 15 producers and 30 writers. And all the writers want their lines said a certain way-which isn't necessarily funny. I mean the lines aren't necessarily so funny to begin with.
As for most writers, language is vital for me: a writer's ability to render a fictional world - characters, landscape, emotions - into something original that alters or deepens my understanding of both literature and life.
I was a writer before 'Eat, Pray, Love,' and I'll be a writer after it's over. It's what I want to do for the rest of my life.
But I think there are a set of experiences that turn a potential writer into a working writer, and then there are places in your life were you start to recognize what you want to do.
How often have I met and disliked writers whose books I love; and conversely, hated the books and then wound up liking the writer? Too often.
Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.
Delaying and withholding tactics, red herrings, partial and doubtful outcomes are stock in trade for fiction writers, especially crime writers.
Writers divide into those who write biting their nails and those who don't. Some writers write licking their finger.
The public figure of the writer, the writer-character, the 'personality-cult' of the author, are all becoming for me more and more intolerable in others, and consequently in myself.
You know, as a writer, I'm more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something I will write it down.
Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.
I don't know what it must be like to be a writer in general, but to be a comedy writer, it's got to be something - it's a very special kind of talent.
In Israel, the role of the writer is dictated by the language in which you write. Writers see themselves as cultural prophets.
I don't believe in writer's block or waiting for inspiration. If you're a writer, you sit down and write.
I wanted to be a writer first, and I struck out in the world to be a writer first, and then found stand-up as a more creative outlet, as a 3D way to be creative.
The difference between writers and readers is similar to the difference between expressionism and impressionism. Writers want to express themselves and readers want to be impressed.
My friends tend to be writers. I think writers and painters are really all the same-we just sit in our rooms.
I think I'm an American writer writing about Latin America, and I'm a Latin American writer who happens to write in English.
