writing

"My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold and anything else is just a waste of time."

"A writer used to live life like Julius Seizure: I came, I saw, I queried. Now you can take control of your consciousness and self-publish."

"It is the tale, not he who tells it."

"First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft."

"Do you know what I think about crying? I think some people have to learn to do it. But once you learn, once you know how to really cry, there's nothing quite like it. I feel sorry for those who don't know the trick. It's like whistling or singing."

"The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky."

"Writing is not a matter of time, but a matter or of space. If you don't keep space in your head for writing, you won't write even if you have the time."

"Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one."

"Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of the writer."

"Karl Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses."Carrie Fisher: "I did masses of opiates religiously."

"Chris Claremont once said of Alan Moore, "if he could plot, we'd all have to get together and kill him."Which utterly misses the most compelling part of Alan's writing, the way he develops and expresses ideas and character. Plot does not define story. Plot is the framework within which ideas are explored and personalities and relationships are unfolded."

"After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love, and I was sure this was a very good story although I would not know truly how good until I read it over the next day."

"All my best writing was written before 1982, and then a significant event happened to me: I was born."

"To achieve lasting literature, fictional or factual, a writer needs perceptive vision, absorptive capacity, and creative strength."

"There's two kinds of women--those you write poems about and those you don't."

"When I started writingI was a sick teenagedfuck inside who partlythought I was the newMarquis de Sade, a bodydoomed to communicatewith Satan who was us-ing my sickness as hishome away from home,and there’s your proof."

"She needed the chaos within her in order to discover the extraordinary no man could ever reach."

"You have the itch for writing born in you. It's quite incurable. What are you going to do with it?"

"A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends."

"Then you should say what you mean,"the March Hare went on. "I do,"Alice hastily replied; "at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.""Not the same thing a bit!"said the Hatter. "You might just as well say that "I see what I eat"is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!"