Because every
story begins
with words

video meet cody smart screenwriter & script doctor

Video: Meet Cody Smart, screenwriter & script doctor.

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

Jim Morrison

It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird.

William Goldman

It always comes down to characters, and individual stories about courage.

Steven Bochco

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

Quentin Tarantino

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

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

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

Lawrence Wray

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

Robert A. Heinlein

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

Oscar Wilde

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

Raymond Chandler

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

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

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.

Sherman Reilly Duffy

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river.

Lisa See

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.

C. J. Cherryh

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

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.

John Legend

If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.

Stan Lee