I think writers, by nature, are more observers instead of participators. I am no where near as much of that as Bob Dylan. But when your antenna is up you are pretty fixated and there is not much room in your life for anything else.
I get to meet writers, and I love writers.
I am not in touch with other writers. I don't have very much contact with other writers. I don't get invited to these things or I don't go to them. I hate panels. I speak to librarians and to conferences of English teachers. That's what I do: teachers and librarians. And high school kids.
I dont watch a whole lot of stand up. Mainly I prefer to read writers; they make me laugh the most. Something gets you when youre alone and someones voice is coming through their work. Theres a different quality to it that stays with you a bit more.
There aren't many shy writers left.
Most writers flourish greatly on a simple, healthy routine with occasional time off for gaiety.
The notorious tendency of conservative apologists and New Age paperback writers alike is to leap from mere possibility to the right to believe. "If there might be space aliens, we can assume there are. " "If the idea of Atlantis is not impossible, we can take it for granted. " "If the traditional view of gospel authorship cannot be definitievely debunked, we can go right on assuming it's truth. " No, you can't.
Politicians are better liars than writers.
I never really like it when other writers talk about coming in behind people and rewriting.
Successful writers learn at last what they should learn at first,--to be intelligently simple.
Some writers enjoy writing, I am told. Not me. I enjoy having written.
I don't think writers should be convenient examples. I don't think we should make people feel settled. I don't try to be a gadfly, but I do think that real ideas are troublesome. There should be something about my work that leaves the reader unsettled. I intend that.
It's not as if the New Testament writers came along and said, "The culmination of Old Testament books is more books, New Testament books. " In some ways they thought instead of the culmination of Old Testament books being Christ himself, the word incarnate as the opening verses of Hebrews 1 put it. In the past God spoke to the fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son and the son is revelation.
Brainless writers gossip nonsense to others heads as dense as they is.
It is always difficult to get across to people who are not professional writers that a talent to write does not mean a talent to write anything at all.
TV is the place that writers want to be.
Whenever they tell me children want this sort of book and children need this sort of writing, I am going to smile politely and shut my earlids. I am a writer, not a caterer. There are plenty of caterers. But what children most want and need is what we and they don't know they want and don't think they need, and only writers can offer it to them.
I think some writers should wait for something to say.
I have great respect for children. And I have great respect for their ability as writers.
I think writers are a lot like lawyers. We feed off the misfortunes of people, even ourselves.