A Quote by John Mortimer
I knew early on that I was going to be a writer. I think it's something rather like a curse that you're born with.
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I think that the Pulitzer Prize is definitely a blessing, but it's also a curse. Because I think that it is a blessing because the work gets more exposure, especially that particular play and then other works of yours too. And then it's a curse because people anticipate that you will write something like you've already written. I think it's really wrong because, you know, I think, as a writer, I'm in a process and I'm somewhere in that process, and I need to continue to develop.
I'm not a guy who curses very much in my personal life. When I curse it sounds like a kid trying to be cool. But I think there are quite a few people, my father being one of them, who use curse words rather eloquently.
I would like to think that I curse expertly - it's not something that I do without considering it. I never curse without intending to; it's not something I resort to because of inability to articulate or find the correct word.
When I look at Perfidia, I think, "That's a Pulitzer Prize winner. That's a National Book Award winner." It's not going to get it. It's going to be shelved in crime and it's just the way it is. I've done something that no one else has ever done; I've started out as a mystery writer, a police writer, and a crime writer, and I became something entirely different.
I knew very early on I wanted to be a television writer. My teachers told me I was a strong writer and had a voice. I really leaned in to that.
I knew that's where I was going. I knew we were going to Italy. You couldn't make this movie in America at this price. I knew it was going to be big. I knew there was going to be a ship involved and that there was going to be a set as big as the ship. I thought, well, here we go. But I knew that was where he was headed. He had been going this way for some time. All directors, once they have some success, they want to spend a whole heck of a lot of money. (Something else can't hear.)
My father was a writer/director/producer, so instead of throwing a ball around, our bonding was going to see movies. And at an early age, I knew if I wanted to impress my dad, it was not going to be by throwing a ball real far.
I knew I was going to do something great. I knew I wasn't going to die 20 miles from where I was born, no 20 miles from where I lived.
I think that knowing where you're going is important, and it's not like, when Robert says that, it's not like we know what every episode of the next five, four, five, six seasons of the show is going to be. I think Matt Weiner knew how Mad Men was going to end. Vince Gilligan knew how Breaking Bad was going to end. Marc Cherry knew how Desperate Housewives was going to end. Along the way, the process of crafting those stories ... You don't know what the road, what twists and turns that road is going to take to ultimately get you there.
I think writer's block is simply the dread that you are going to write something horrible. But as a writer, I believe that if you sit down at the keys long enough, sooner or later something will come out.
Growing up, nobody I knew even knew a writer. So it was a big adventure and something that I've wrestled with my whole life. I think it's a journey worth taking, really finding out who you are and what you do well.
I knew I wasn't going to be a scientist; I knew that early. When they started talking about dissecting frogs, I knew I wasn't going to be a scientist.
Writer-directors are a little bit more liberal, rather than having just the writer on the set, because I think sometimes the writer becomes too precious with the words. If you're a writer-director, you can see what you're doing and see your work in action, so I think you can correct it right there and still not compromise yourself.
As a reader, when the writer gets sentimental, you drift, because there's something fishy going on there. You recognize a moment that's largely about the writer and the writer's own need to believe in something that might not in fact exist. As a reader, you think, 'Where did the story go? Where did the person I'm reading about go?'
Comedy came early. I knew when I was a kid that I was silly, and I knew that I liked people who were funny, but I don't think I knew I was funny. I didn't really think about it.
I wanted to be a politician and a movie star. But I was born a writer. If you're born that, you can't change it. You're going to do it whether you want to or not.~
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