My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn't want them to be checking his writings.
When I started writing about vampires, I swore that I wouldn't touch the 'Dracula' legend because it's been done too many times.
It's just a matter of writing the kind of book I enjoy reading. Something better be happening at the beginning, and then on every page after, or I get irritated.
If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.
An artist can go paint, and a writer can go write, but an actor needs to get hired, needs somebody to say, 'Here, come and do this,' That's the hard part.
We have the crime of the century every six months. So for people like me who enjoy, you know, taking these stories and writing about them, the material is endless.
For a country is not merely a piece of earth; it is, above all, a compendium of social, cultural, and historical factors which begin to acquire sense and order through the process of writing.
The books I read, if they intrude on my writing, do so as weather will pass through and touch a landscape - affecting it, yes, but only now and then leaving a permanent mark.
I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.
I've found it easier to write, to coalesce my thoughts, since having children. It brings you back to what you experienced yourself as a child, and you empathize with what your parents went through.
I have an English identity and a French identity. When I'm in France, I'm more outgoing. And the French part of me cooks, whereas the English part of me writes.
I started writing and acting in these little plays and then I was discovered by Dustin Hoffman. He got me my first audition for a film he was in, called 'I Heart Huckabees.'
I shall stick to my resolution of writing always what I think no matter whom it offends.
Writing is about taking everyday observations, things which people see almost every day of their lives, and yet bringing it to their attention for the very first time.
It's what I do well - I write about things that make people uncomfortable. That's probably the only thing I do better than my peers.
I find screenplays easy to write, my novels being very visual. You see what people look like. The physical action is described.
The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything.
Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.
SOON was the first novel where I used a rough outline. Usually I have characters and an idea and write as a process of discovery. Like working without a net.
People only say I'm angry because I'm black and I'm a woman. But all sorts of people write with strong feeling, the way I do.
Pacing is not the sort of thing you can plan out beforehand, but you're always aware of it as you write, because you need to make constant decisions.
