A Quote by George Pelecanos

I never went to school for writing, never took a writing class, but when you're in a room with David Simon and Ed Burns and Dennis Lehane and Richard Price, and they're going over something you've written, you learn what works and what doesn't.

George Pelecanos

Quote Topics

Burns Class David Going Learn Never Over Price Richard Room School Simon Something Took Works Writing Written

Quote Author

George Pelecanos
American - Author
Born: February 18, 1957

I've taken every writing class I've had available. I took classes in high school, and I took English and writing classes in community college, but I dropped out of college. I also attended a local writing workshop two years ago.

Amanda Hocking

I never took a writing class.

George Pelecanos

My father's father wrote for a Philadelphia newspaper and aspired to be a playwright. We had in our house a couple of crazy unproduced plays that he had written. For the one creative writing class I took in my life, I didn't do any writing - I decided that I would plagiarize his terrible play to not fail the class.

Stephen Gaghan

I'd never written nonfiction about the war on drugs, but I know a tremendous amount about it: I taught a class on it for seven years. I was putting into words the stuff I was teaching, and I was writing it up and thought, "Dude, you're writing a book."

Ayelet Waldman

I do think reading is the best practice for writing, along with writing all the time. I actually never liked writing on my own or in school until I'd had my blog for a while and realized I'd been writing every day for years.

Tavi Gevinson

Writing songs with Brian and performing them with Al Jardine, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, David Marks, Bruce Johnston and many other brilliant musicians over the years is my legacy, and something of which I am very proud and protective.

Mike Love

I listened to my first comedy album in 6th grade. It was Bill Cosby. My brother and I would play it over and over on a Fisher Price record player. A friend in high school also introduced me to Richard Pryor. I wasn't writing material back then, but I would say funny stuff. I was good at making fun of people's moms. If I knew something personal about you, it would be used against you.

Felipe Esparza

If I believe in anything when it comes to writing, and I can't stress enough that I detest writing, it's something that sticks with me not from any English class but from some awfully recondite driver's ed. seminars I had the privilege to audit during my mid-teens, and to this day I probably misunderstand it anyway. It's the term "right of way."

Gary Lutz

My expectations for myself were never high. I had a very unusual way of writing songs and of thinking about music. I wasn't at all like Bob Dylan or Simon and Garfunkel. I was completely different - I didn't have a David Geffen at my side.

Don McLean

Writing is great because in the writing you never have to... First of all you never have to leave your home. And you never have to meet the test of reality when you're writing.

Woody Allen

Writing is something you'll never learn in any university or at any school. It's something that is within you, and if it isn't there, nothing can put it there.

Harper Lee

I was a 'learn by doing' writer - I never took any formal writing classes. So it took a long time to figure things out and find my voice.

Sara Zarr

It took time to learn that the hard thing about writing is to let the story write itself, while one sits at the typewriter and does as little thinking as possible. It happened over and over again, and the beginner learned - when you start puzzling over an idea, and slowing down on the keys, the writing gets worse and worse.

Richard Bach

I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them; most writers groups moonlight as support groups for the kind of people who think that writing is therapeutic. Writing is the exact opposite of therapy.

Zadie Smith

I never thought about writing a novel until I was 13, and that happened by chance. I was on school holidays, and I was bored, and I thought I just wanted to do something to occupy myself instead of asking, 'What can I do, mum? Entertain me.' I started, and it really just took over, and I realised, 'Wow, this is an amazing experience.'