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.
I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.
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.
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.
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.
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.
It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
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.



























