A moment of silence, please, for a giant of a writer.

09 Jan, 2020

Buck Henry, screenwriter and actor, 1930-2020.

Buck Henry, the legendary screenwriter, has died. With Mel Brooks, he co-created Get Smart (1965-1970). He adapted the screenplay for The Graduate (1967), and wrote:

The Owl and the Pussycat
What's Up, Doc?
The Day of the Dolphin
To Die For

He hosted Saturday Night Live 10 times. He acted in more than 40 films. He played himself pitching a movie in The Player. He directed films and TV shows. Twitter has been flooded with tributes, including this one, which had me laughing for five minutes:

Rest in peace, brother. You shall be missed.

A moment of silence, please, for a giant of a writer.

January 9, 2020May 9, 2025

Buck Henry, the legendary screenwriter, has died. With Mel Brooks, he co-created Get Smart (1965-1970). He adapted the Read More...

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

John Irving

The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.

Mickey Spillane

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert A. Heinlein

Don’t annoy an author, you’ll end up in their book and you won’t look good.

Lawrence Wray

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

John Campbell

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

Truman Capote Quote

Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.

Michael Crichton

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G.K. Chesterton

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Roald Dahl

Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Elbert Hubbard

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

Anton Chekhov

Ever heard of a carpenter not going to work because he has “carpenter’s block”? If a writer can’t write, it’s because he doesn’t really want to, he isn’t ready to get it on paper or he’s just plain lazy.

Chet Cunningham

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain

I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.

Chris Claremont

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.

George Singleton

No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.

Thomas Wolfe

A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.

Robert McKee

In Hollywood, the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.