On Writing A Book Quotes

It is no fun at all to have been writing a book for seven or so years, especially when you've never published anything before.

A lot of my close friends had tolerantly washed their hands of the whole idea of me writing a book. They had said to themselves, "I don't know what he's doing."

I think writing a book with film in mind is a way to write a really bad books. You can usually tell those books that are packaged to become films.

Writing a book is like masturbation, and making a movie is like an orgy.

I worked at magazines for over 10 years before I even thought of writing a book.

I spent seven years writing The Free World. There are a lot of things I accomplished there that I'm very proud of, but I didn't want to spend another seven years writing a book like that.

Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay.

These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story.

Writing a book is like an unknown abyss, every time. Every book is different. Contrary to what unpublished writers think, it's horrible to have a book out.

Writing a book is the most difficult, anxiety-prone aspect of my life because the words that I put on paper are very serious to me.

It's my story ["Selling Isobel"].I chose to write a screenplay about it because I think film is the quickest medium to get a story out, rather than writing a book.

I considered writing a book too, but I think people don't like to read, to be honest - they want to watch. People want to see crazy things, so we decided to make a film ["Selling Isobel"] instead.

The thing that I'm most passionate about, I'm writing a book called 'Jab Jab Jab Jab Jab Right Hook,' and it really focuses on how to story-tell in a noisy, ADD world.

If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.

The greatest thing about writing a book is that at first it's all inchoate, but the more you work on it, the more the book teaches you its internal rules.

When I'm writing a book I prefer not to speak about it, because only when the book is finished can I try to understand what I've really done and to compare my intentions with the result.

I now can be sure that, once I start writing a book, I'll be able to finish it. I've also become more assured about my 'voice' as a writer and being able to keep the characters true to themselves.

Nobody's going to write a book about me, because nobody's going to find anything worth writing a book about.

Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a plan, and collects materials.

Generally, if you preface an interview request with, 'I'm an author writing a book,' for some reason, that seems to open a lot of doors.

I get absolutely ruthless in my own way about not doing anything else when I am trying to concentrate on writing a book. I have to stick to it and concentrate.

The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of rearing and peering from the bent tip of a grass blade, looking for a route.

I dream of writing a book like LOVERS some day. It is so spare but so rich. It is history made intimate, and a masterpiece of compression.

Writing a book is like loving someone. It can be very painful.

I never enjoyed writing a book more; indeed, it is the only one I remember in no sense as a labor but as a joy.

Writing a book about yourself is like therapy, and you go 'Oh My God, that's the reason that happened.' Writing about it, you're forced to really examine things.

Do you know what writing a book is? It's sitting alone in a room for weeks without making contact with another human. I felt like Howard Hughes.

When I'm writing a book, you can't think about your audience. You're going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You're got to write from deep inside.

Writing a book is hard. It turns out, writing a second book is twice as hard.

I feel like writing a book there's always a version in your head that's an amazing version, but then you write the version that you can write.

Turning the blog into a book was extremely difficult, a tremendous amount of sustained, hard work. Blogging is easy; writing a book is difficult.

I would never want to hurt anyone by writing a book.

When I'm writing a book - say I'm going to write a parenting book. I'll go out and buy the 100 top parenting books and I will read those, not so I can copy them for sure.

When you're writing a book, you don't want it to be overly trendy because you want people to enjoy it for years and refer back to it.

When you're done [with writing a book], people tell you "Well, gee, I'm not interested." "Great, I'm glad I sat down and wrote this!"

Writing a book set in New Mexico was partially a way to express my own love for the state, and partially a way to prudently follow the advice to write what you know.

If you think it's worth writing a book about then that means you suspect that you're not the only one. You suspect that it has something to do with the larger patterns of your culture.

As you'll know yourself, there are these moments when you're writing a book when one remark or moment will pull everything together and you'll think, "That's it. I've got what I need."

When I'm writing a book, I draw from my immediate experience, and my books are therefore almost a snapshot of where I am at that moment in my life.

Writing a book is a bit like going on location for a movie. You're absent from your life, your family, and your friends. You're psychologically gone, so you might as well be physically gone.

Writing a book is the most terrifying thing that I've ever done. It's so much harder than writing for television because it is a completely different skill set.

I think when people hear about a celebrity writing a book of any kind, the assumption is that it was dictated to a ghostwriter.

I loved writing a book in which, in some ways, it's very, very classical, and in some ways I'm breaking lots of rules about what you can do and what you can't do.

It's the same thing in a way, although writing a book is a very solitary thing.

Writing a book for me, I expect, is very similar to the experience of reading the book for my readers.

I didn't originally intend on writing a book. I started writing during the day to feel like I was accomplishing something creative.

My way of writing a book is completely disorganized - to hurl myself at the problem, over and over.

Writing a book is a way of thinking to me, the only way of thinking that I have found successful.

I have some great stories and I will get around to writing a book.

When I'm writing a book, sentence by sentence, I'm not thinking theoretically. I'm just trying to work out the story from inside the characters I've got.