A Quote by Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Since I've been writing about things my entire life, I thought, 'Well, that's what I would do as a president is to read and then write and talk about things that are interesting to me.'
I always wanted to have a young female artist that would tell me the truth about life and not only talk about the good things or the things that were exciting or interesting but also talk about the things that people in general are skeptical to talk about- the bad things that do happen. A good 50% of our lives is things that are happening that we're not necessarily super thrilled about and I feel like that's missing from pop music a lot of the time so my main goal is to be truthful about everything and not just specific things.
The best books, they don’t talk about things you never thought about before. They talk about things you’d always thought about, but you didn’t think anyone else had thought about. You read them, and suddenly you’re a little bit less alone in the world. You’re part of this cosmic community of people who’ve thought about this thing, whatever it happens to be.
I never learned to be a writer. I never took screenwriting courses. I never read anyone's scripts. As a writer, my only guiding principle has been to write about things that scare me, write about things that make me feel vulnerable, write about things that will expose my deepest fears, so that's how I write.
One of the things that put me off writing for a while was that piece of advice everybody gives new writers: 'Write what you know.' Nobody would ever want to read about my boring life! But I do know a lot of things about different societies' cultures and mythologies. The way people were and are.
It's not hard for me to be honest with my fans because that's what I set out to do from the beginning - I've based my entire career off of just trying to do that for them - but I always kind of forget that my real life friends can hear my music and they can watch my interviews if they want and that's when I get kind of like- "oh..." - I don't necessarily sit down and talk to my friends about all the things that I write my music about, because it's easier for me to write music than to sit and talk to my friends about it sometimes- it's almost like writing in a diary.
I thought, "Well, I'm writing about early childhood, so maybe it would make sense to write about late childhood as well, early adulthood." Those were my thoughts, and this was how this crazy book [Winter Journal] was composed. I've never seen a book with pictures like at the end, pictures related to things you've read before.
I didn't learn how to read and write until pretty late, and it was this very mysterious, incredible thing, like driving, that I didn't get to do. And then I started writing things down on little scraps of paper and I would hide them. I would write the year on them and then I would stuff them in a drawer somewhere. But I didn't start to really read until about eight. I'm dyslexic, so it took a long time.
There's certain things as a songwriter that I don't really care to write about, and there are certain things I won't sing about anymore. There are just so many things that I probably thought was OK for me, or have been in the past, that I would never want my son to think was OK.
Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it, although it's difficult.
Would it be better to have a president who cries easily? Well, that depends on what he cried about. I would not like the thought of a president who could not cry. That would be worse than one who cried over the right things. Which, in this case, would be the things I would cry over.
You're writing for some version of yourself. You're writing the kinds of things that you like to read or wanted to read at a certain point. So, primarily for most of my career, I've written the kind of criticism that fascinates me. The things I discovered the things that get me going, that I'm excited about.
Well, a lot of things surprised me. There were things that I had never thought about, in my life. I never thought about how loud prison was. I've never thought about how your ears never really get a break from all this noise. That was actually replicated on our set pretty well.
I don't think he was knowable. I mean, when most people talk about knowing somebody a lot or a little, they're talking about the secrets they've been told or haven't been told. They're talking about intimate things, family things, love things," that nice old lady said to me. "Mr. Hoenikker had all those things in his life, the way every living person has to, but they weren't the main things with him.
I've been writing poems since I was in the Navy - to Rosalynn. I found I could say things in poems that I never could in prose. Deeper, more personal things. I could write a poem about my mother that I could never tell my mother. Or feelings about being on a submarine that I would have been too embarrassed to share with fellow submariners.
Blogging has mostly been an opportunity to react more immediately to experiences to try out ideas that I may end up using in the print media or in some other place. When I write books, it's a way for me to bring readers into the experience of writing the book, all through the process of writing the books that I write. I talk about what I'm up to in the blog. I let people know what I am doing. To me, it's just part of putting my professional life up in a way that people who are interested in it can access; and learning things from them as well.
I didn't write with a target audience in mind. What excited me was how much I would enjoy writing about Harry. I never thought about writing for children - children's books chose me. I think if it is a good book anyone will read it.
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