I wanted to write about relationships in a more honest, raw sort of way. Get away from all those cliches about how 'time heals' and how you can be the better person. Less sugar-coating and more 'feel the pain.'
The further you go, what, I'm gonna wait til I'm 80? Naw, I'm tellin' my story now. I was just moved. I was moved to tell my story. You know? People write books all the time.
Every time that I write a novel I am convinced for at least two years that it is the last one, because a novel is like a child. It takes two years after its birth. You have to take care of it. It starts walking, and then speaking.
I started to write in about 1950; I was thirty-five at the time; there didn't seem to be any strong motivation. I simply was endeavoring to put down in a more or less straightforward journalistic style something about my experiences with addiction an...
In my case, the long gaps between my books have got quite a lot to do with lack of confidence. A lot of the time when I'm not writing I start thinking I can't do it.
I was so naive in radio technique that I knew nothing about timing. I would write pages on Honus Wagner and then get only half through by the time the show ended. I eventually learned, but there was nobody there to school me.
I write as someone who has no more time for repressive Islam than he does for repressive Christianity or Judaism, but at least look at the face in the hijab - and try to imagine the one beneath the niqab - before you depersonalise its wearer.
The marvellous thing about writing, whether it be fiction or journalism, is that it is simultaneously the most intimate and the most anonymous of meetings between people. It is profoundly intimate in reaching into the psyche of another, at the same t...
English writing tends to fall into two categories - the big, baggy epic novel or the fairly controlled, tidy novel. For a long time, I was a fan of the big, baggy novel, but there's definitely an advantage to having a little bit more control.
I have always distrusted memoir. I tend to write my memoirs through my fiction. It's easier to get to the truth by not claiming that you are speaking it. Some things can be said in fiction that can never be said in memoir.
I don't think there's any topic a writer should feel afraid of tackling just because it has already been discussed. If you feel you have a fresh perspective and an understanding of a certain emotional truth, it's always worth writing.
One of the pitfalls of writing about illness is that it is very easy to imagine people with cancer as either these wise, beyond-their-years creatures or else these sad-eyed, tragic people. And the truth is people living with cancer are very much like...
Mathilda: I am writing here the name of a girl in the class who makes me sick. If things get hot, she'll take the heat.
Pi Patel: [writing on the lifeboat] Words are all I have left to hang on to. Everything's all mixed up, fragmented, can't tell daydreams, nightdreams from reality anymore.
Frank: [reading what Dwayne is writing on his notepad] But. I. Am. Not. Going. To. Have. Any. Fun. Frank: Yeah, we're all with ya on that one, Dwayne.
Christian: Then I'll write a song and we'll put it in the show and whenever you sing it or hear it. Or whistle or hum it then you'll know. It'll mean that we love one another.
[first lines] Barbara Covett: [voiceover of Barbara writing in her diary] People trust me with their secrets. But who do I trust with mine? You, only you.
Joe Gillis: [Joe is reading Norma's script] Sometimes it's interesting to see just how bad bad writing can be. This promised to go the limit.
Wallace Wells: Look, I didn't write the gay handbook. If you got a problem with it, take it up with Liberace's ghost.
Jin-tae: [tears up the last will that Jin-seok was writing] Wills are for dying people. You've got to be strong.
When I was writing 'Withnail,' I was so busted flat that I had one lightbulb that I would carry around the house with me. I mean, really. No furniture, no money, and I was hoping to be an actor, but I could never get a job.
