A Quote by James M. Cain

You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel.

James M. Cain

Quote Topics

Catch Mind Novel Then Up Wait Whatever Working Write Your

Quote Author

James M. Cain
American - Writer
July 1, 1892 - October 27, 1977

You have to write and develop and wait for the world to catch up to your art.

Lena Waithe

My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Poppy, had us each write a 'novel,' whatever that meant to us. It must have been 10 pages long, and we bound it and colored the front. And she wrote on mine, 'I can't wait till your real novel comes out. Give me a call.'

Andrew Sean Greer

When I have time, I write other things. I'm working on a book, I paint, I sculpt, I play with my dog, I watch television - I catch up on South Park or movies or whatever I've missed, normal stuff.

Taylor Momsen

I feel that whatever virtues the novel may have are very much connected with the limitations you mention. I am not writing a conventional novel, and I think that the quality of the novel I write will derive precisely from the peculiarity or aloneness, if you will, of the experience I write from.

Flannery O'Connor

We all want to make money and have a good life. But if your passion is writing, and you want to write a novel, I don't think you should sit in your home and wait for someone to give you the opportunity. You write it.

Salim Akil

The DNA of the novel - which, if I begin to write nonfiction, I will write about this - is that: the title of the novel is the whole novel. The first line of the novel is the whole novel. The point of view is the whole novel. Every subplot is the whole novel. The verb tense is the whole novel.

Mary Kay Zuravleff

My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel.

Edward Abbey

I love working and writing new songs. But sometimes you need to wait, to have something in your mind, and then you can let yourself play music.

Yann Tiersen

Everyday happiness means getting up in the morning, and you can't wait to finish your breakfast. You can't wait to do your exercises. You can't wait to put on your clothes. You can't wait to get out. And you can't wait to come home, because the soup is hot.

George Burns

You sit in your tepee and dream and then you go to wherever the dream may take you. It might come true. You wait for real life to catch up.

Burt Lancaster

If you set out to write an adjective novel, you're setting out to write a mediocre novel; your allegiance is to the adjective, not to the story, and then that just sucks all the joy right out of it.

Patrick Ness

I don't really like to write at a desk. I like to write when driving in a car. ... Once you're working on it, you're working on it all the time, and sometimes stuff'll come in the middle of the night, in a dream or something. Your mind is working on it all the time.

Paul Simon

I try to write in the morning when I'm working on a novel. You get up, you have breakfast, you read the paper, you make a couple of phone calls, and then you sit on the couch and start. I use felt pen and white notepaper.

Carolyn See

The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up.

Bob Uecker

Somewhere in talking and rehearsing, there is a magical moment where actors catch a current, they're on the right road. If they really catch it, then whatever they do from then on is correct and it all comes out of them from that point on.