I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in you know just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing a character came sort of strolling in and I realized Oh my God I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.

There is both a skill factor and an effort factor in dream recall. People can develop dream recall skills such as lying still in the morning and writing down whatever comes to mind.

I don't believe in writing at night because it comes too easily. When I read it in the morning it's not good. I need daylight to begin. Between nine and ten o'clock I have a long breakfast with reading and music.

I am a morning writer I am writing at eight-thirty in longhand and I keep at it until twelve-thirty when I go for a swim. Then I come back have lunch and read in the afternoon until I take my walk for the next day's writing.

I spent every night until four in the morning on my dissertation until I came to the point when I could not write another word not even the next letter. I went to bed. Eight o'clock the next morning I was up writing again.

The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning.

I never laugh or smile when I am writing. When I come home for lunch after writing all morning my wife says I look like I just came home from a funeral. This is not bragging. This is an illness.

Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o'clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me.

I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem or saying a prayer.

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.

Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough you will be a healthy person. That is if you write what you need to write as opposed to what will make money or what will make fame.

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love and then for a few close friends and then for money.

I'd have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

My mom's a concert pianist so she started teaching me when I was around seven. When I was eight I started writing my own songs and kinda started putting piano and singing together. But I'm trained classically which is a big influence on me I think.

I've always been a writer because I've always been a student. My mom's a retired professor so I come from a very academic background. I love writing you know?

I think I've become more like my mom just because of what we're both interested in children and teaching and writing.

I could never have pictured myself writing a book when I was 25 years old. My mom was an English teacher but I wasn't that way growing up.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

You may not be able to read a doctor's handwriting and prescription but you'll notice his bills are neatly typewritten.

Writing and singing does give me some kind of release from the demons of my past it is a therapy of sorts but to be honest my marriage played a more important role in the acceptance of myself than performance has ever done.

I was a bartender for a long time so I know how to make drinks but I'm more likely to offer them than to have them. I think this is one of the reasons why I get to live longer than my great-grandmother did and why I get to produce more writing than she did and why my marriage isn't in dire straits.

Love is easy and I love writing. You can't resist love. You get an idea someone says something and you're in love.