My dad was an editor and a writer, and that's actually what I aspired to be.
Can you imagine a writer in England influencing? Absolutely not. And in France? It used to be, but no more-absolutely not. France used to, at least, have writers as diplomats, but not any more.
As a writer, you have to believe you're one of the best writers in the world. To sit down every day at the typewriter filled with self-doubt is not a good idea.
Every artist, every scientist, must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of the greatest of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. The struggle invades the formerly cloistered halls of our universities and other seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear.
As a writer, if you have something on a page, you can start moving it around and get something you like. But if you have a blank page, it's just gonna be a blank page.
I am not a born writer, but I was born a writer.
One of the best things that happened for me as a playwright is becoming a comic-book writer.
There was a writer in the '20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn't tell you what it was.
One is a writer, or one is not.
Why had I become a writer in the first place? Because I wasn't fit for society; I didn't fit into the system.
That is one thing I am sure of amid my many uncertainties regarding the literary vocation: deep inside, a writer feels that writing is the best thing that ever happened to him, or could ever happen to him, because as far as he is concerned, writing is the best possible way of life, never mind the social, political, or financial rewards of what he might achieve through it.
I don't think it's so important to be a movie director. It's a beautiful profession, but no more than to be a cartoon writer. A very rich cartoon writer. I've done a lot of films, and I know deeply that, in all of cinema, there is no director who is as good as Shakespeare.
Imagine a world in which no writer has written a literary novel in sixty years. Imagine a place where not a single person has read a book that is truly about the character at its center.
A good writer is always a people watcher.
By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication.
Novels do take charge of the writer, and the writer is basically a kind of sheepdog just trying to keep things on track.
I'm always wondering what is the job that gives the writer the most amount of time to write. I still don't know what the answer is as someone who has taught and is now working at a grocery store.
The creative writer is usually captive to his next book.
My function as a writer is to provide an atmosphere in which people can think wisely about what we're doing on this planet.
A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.