A Quote by Cullen Bunn

Skipp and Spector's 'Books of the Dead' were huge influences on me as a writer. — © Cullen Bunn
Skipp and Spector's 'Books of the Dead' were huge influences on me as a writer.
We were surrounded by influences and interests that came between Stephen and me. The nurse who became his wife was seeking to undermine me, and there were wider influences, too, following the runaway success of 'A Brief History of Time.'
Both Springsteen and Michael Jackson, who had these huge productions, could always scale them back down to just a song and a melody. All of that influences me. I also try to be a fictional writer, and sometimes I get close, but the things that resonate the most with me - and with everyone else - is what's real.
Whenever I give a talk about my work I am invariably asked who my influences are. Not what my influences are, but who.. As if the gutter, misunderstandings, memories, sex, dreams, and books matter less than forebears do. After all, in terms of influences, it is as much the guy who mugged me on Tenth Street, or my beloved dog who passed away much too early, as it was Giotto or Diane Arbus.
There were epochs in the history of humanity in which the writer was a sacred person. He wrote the sacred books, universal books, the codes, the epic, the oracles. Sentences inscribed on the walls of the crypts; examples in the portals of the temples. But in those times the writer was not an individual alone; he was the people.
I think, in the early years, my biggest influences would have been... Daft Punk was a huge one for me, I bought their main record when I was nine; at a young age, I was into music. The Prodigy, Gorillaz were big ones.
One of the things I do take some pride in is that if you had never read an article about my life, if you knew nothing about me, except that my books were being set in front of you to read, and if you were to read those books in sequence, I don't think you would say to yourself, 'Oh my God, something terrible happened to this writer in 1989.'
There are some extremely acceptable male comedians out there: Joel Osteen, Abraham Lincoln, the man who played Phil Spector in HBO's 'Phil Spector.' But even those guys, while insightful and amusing, aren't exactly funny.
In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books.
What is a great love of books? It is something like a personal introduction to the great and good men of all past times. Books, it is true, are silent as you see them on their shelves; but, silent as they are, when I enter a library I feel as if almost the dead were present, and I know if I put questions to these books they will answer me with all the faithfulness and fulness which has been left in them by the great men who have left the books with us.
Willie Nelson, Marty Robbins, Merle Haggard and Keith Whitley - guys like that were huge influences.
When I first decided I wanted to be a writer, when I was 10, 11 years old, the books that I loved obviously and openly fit that description: They came with maps and glossaries and timelines - books like Lord Of The Rings, Dune, The Chronicles Of Narnia. I imagined that's what being a writer was: You invented a world, and you did it in a very detailed way, and you told stories that were set in that world.
I found myself jealous of the people who wrote the books. They were dead and they were still taking up my time. Who did they think they were?
I always send new writers to 'Writer's Digest Books' line-up of how-to books. I read them all when I was starting out, and they were very helpful.
I'm not a huge fan of prequels and sequels and the cynical rush to make money on the back of books by other writers who are now dead.
I’m a huge fan of the books myself, so to know that I got to play Clary – who’s a literary heroine to me – was a huge honour.
Afro-Caribbean influences are in me as a creative being the same way Spanish influences were in Picasso's work. I think the notion of labels - "black dancer, black choreographer" -is a ploy to divide and conquer, and to limit.
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