So you need to deliver a speech, let’s say 20 minutes long, to salespeople. You’ve got a new product ready to push out to Read More...
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.
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.
Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.
Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.
I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.
If the sex scene doesn’t make you want to do it — whatever it is they’re doing — it hasn’t been written right.
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.
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.
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.
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.
A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.
Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.
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.
























