Quotes by Writing I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself. August Wilson artistwritingthinking I don't write for a particular audience. August Wilson audienceparticularwriting A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling. August Wilson readingwritingpeople I dont write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but thats not why I write. August Wilson socialwritingbelieve There's no idea in the world that is not contained by black life. I could write forever about the black experience in America. August Wilson writingamericaideas . . . what happened, of course, was that I was writing a play set in the 1940's that was supposed to be somehow representative of black American life, and I didn't have any women in there. And I knew that wasn't going to work. August Wilson blackplaywriting If you want to support a writer, produce the first five plays he writes. August Wilson supportplaywriting Between speeches and awards, you can find something to do every other week. It's hard to write. Your focus gets splintered. Once you put one thing in your calendar, that month is gone. August Wilson awardsfocuswriting The impulse to write the poem, that impulse is a great dramatic impulse. But hell, anybody could write a play. I do know this: all writers are not dramatists. You may be a great writer, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're a dramatist. Very few people have done both. August Wilson playwritingmean From this time everything was copulated. Acetic, formic, butyric, margaric, &c., acids, alkaloids, ethers, amides, anilides, all became copulated bodies. So that to make acetanilide, for example, they no longer employed acetic acid and aniline, but they re-copulated a copulated oxalic acid with a copulated ammonia. I am inventing nothing-altering nothing. Is it my fault if, when writing history, I appear to be composing a romance? Auguste Laurent romancewritingscience I knew that if I wrote a new book every six months or every year, if I continued to read great books, eventually I would write something worthy of publication. I understood I might be in my forties or my fifties or even my sixties, but I felt confident that it would happen. Augusten Burroughs writingbookyears I understood at once, I am not living, but actively dying. I am smoking, living unhealthily. I’m shutting down. I need to go the other way, inside. And it was so clear to me what I was doing. It was suddenly perfectly clear. I understood, I need to write. Live here, in my words, and my head. I need to go inside, that’s all. No big, complicated, difficult thing. I just need to go in reverse. And not worry about what to write about, but just write. Or, if I’m going to worry about what to write, then do this worrying on paper, so at least I’m writing and will have a record of the anxiety. Augusten Burroughs smokingworrywriting I'll always write about what's going on in my life and the reason for that is it's not actually because I'm so fascinated with myself, it's because I can't think. I can't think like have thoughts in my head and think them through and come to a conclusion. It's like math for me. Augusten Burroughs mathwritingthinking I never question the way I write. Writing is the only thing that's without seams for me. It's an effort to talk because my pictures have to be turned into these sounds. It's an effort to be alive. It's work. But writing is wonderful. Augusten Burroughs effortalivewriting There is no such thing as too ordinary to write about, whether that's life or a scene in a novel. What's interesting to people, whether it's memoir or fiction, is the truth. Augusten Burroughs writingpeopleinteresting I never get sick of writing my own stories because there's a certain comfort in knowing you will never run out of material. It's relaxing, actually, to write. Augusten Burroughs knowingwritingrunning Once I decided to write, to be published, I knew it would happen. Augusten Burroughs decidedhappenswriting But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chair. Augusten Burroughs linessittingwriting As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rejected, either by agents or publishers. You absolutely must plow forward. Augusten Burroughs luxurygiving-upwriting My only ritual is to just sit down and write, write every day. Augusten Burroughs ritualdown-andwriting«115116117118119120121122123124125»
