At times I have a beat first and then I write. Sometimes I have a melody in my head and I pick up the guitar to develop the song. Other times I just write without any melodies, and I end up using those lyrics when I think I have the appropriate instr...
When authors write from personal experiences,straight from the heart,it touches the readers. Their work speaks out to all who read it,and most of the time,people can relate to what was written. I have always believed that books can change people's li...
I am part of a light, and it is the music. The Light fills my six senses: I see it, hear, feel, smell, touch and think. Thinking of it means my sixth sense. Particles of Light are written note. O bolt of lightning can be an entire sonata. A thousand ...
Art is a conversation we are all invited to and are all worthy to participate in. Yes, great works can be intimidating, but no one else in the world has what you have—your voice, your eyes, your feeling and perspective. Other people have written gr...
I would get records by Earl Scruggs... I would tune my banjo down and I'd pick out the songs note by note. Learned how to play that way. I persevered. There was a book written by Pete Seeger, who showed you some basic strumming and some basic picking...
Number three: Stay away from the church. In the battle over science vs. religion, science offers credible evidence for all the serious claims it makes. The church says, 'Oh, it’s right here in this book, see? The one written by people who thought t...
Read a lot. But read as a writer, to see how other writers are doing it. And make your knowledge of literature in English as deep and broad as you can. In workshops, writers are often told to read what is being written now, but if that is all you rea...
Honestly, I try and stay away from what's been written about me, because if you let that stuff get to you and it's not true it can drive you crazy. One thing that I have heard recently which is not true, I didn't say it, is that I believe I was quote...
To witness the awe of human beings delighting in their own hands forming the written word was humbling and he understood it profoundly at that moment watching those two, with the ancient land around them, in their traditional robes and the resting ca...
What is seen is not the Truth What is cannot be said Trust comes not without seeing Nor understanding without words The wise comprehends with knowledge To the ignorant it is but a wonder Some worship the formless God Some worship his various forms In...
A month into the semester, I would start showing up twenty minutes late to class again. The rewards weren't enough to keep me on task, and life got in the way. My mind wandered to the future, postcollege, when I'd create my own schedule that served m...
Several people, not just reviewers, took me to task for writing about what they called the working classes - something I've been doing for 40 years. I thought that was contemptible - what do they want to do, ghettoize the working class as a subject? ...
Myths, whether in written or visual form, serve a vital role of asking unanswerable questions and providing unquestionable answers. Most of us, most of the time, have a low tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. We want to reduce the cognitive diss...
A lot of pieces I have written have to do with courage. As a result, people think that I am naturally brave. But what people don't know, is that I grew up with phobias and many fears. I was scared of everything. So, I write of courage not because I h...
While we are living, our lives are like that of an open book, still being written. Eventually, our book closes for us, and to others, it will be as if we never existed at all. Those of us who write down our life story, will leave a little piece of us...
The perfect life, the perfect lie, I realised after Christmas, is one which prevents you from doing that which you would ideally have done (painted, say, or written unpublishable poetry) but which, in fact, you have no wish to do.
In the books I have written, I have created in my mind a universe. My kids say I have a village in my head and I live in that village, and it's true. When I start writing a book, characters from previous books reappear. All my emotions, my mind, my h...
I changed my writing style deliberately. My first two novels were written in a very self-consciously literary way. After I embraced gay subject matter, which was then new, I didn't want to stand in its way. I wanted to make the style as transparent a...
When people say, "I've told you fifty times," / They mean to scold, and very often do; / When poets say, "I've written fifty rhymes," / They make you dread that they 'II recite them too; In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their crimes; / At fifty love...
A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake and shout, 'Hey,this is no time for sleeping! You can't forget me, there's still more to write!' Impelled by that voice, I would find myself wr...
Thousands of years before Christianity, secret cults arose which worshipped the sacred mushroom—the Amanita Muscaria—which, for various reasons (including its shape and power as a drug) came to be regarded as a symbol of God on earth. When the se...
