A Quote by William S. Burroughs
Speaking for myself, art differs from writing in that I never know what I'm going to paint until I paint it, so it's almost like automatic writing. A writer, on the other hand, can't help but know what he's going to write, because the activity demands a degree of premeditation.
Related Quotes
I paint very messy. I throw paint around. So when I let myself do the same sort of thing with my writing, and I would just write and write and write and revise, that's when I found my rhythm in writing.
If I were a painter, I would paint beautiful bodies - I would paint nipples, and I would paint Bibles. Am I going to say, 'I'm not going to paint this woman's neck because people will think I just want to lick on necks?' Please! That's not what art is about.
I myself, as I'm writing, don't know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don't know the conclusion at all and I don't know what's going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don't know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there's no purpose to writing the story.
To know that one does not write for the other, to know that these things I am going to write will never cause me to be loved by the one I love (the other), to know that writing compensates for nothing, sublimates nothing, that it is precisely there where you are not--this is the beginning of writing.
If you're going to be a writer, you're going to write because you have to. It's not like other arts and not nearly as rewarding because it's a lot lonelier, and most of the time it's just you alone in a dark room or a coffee shop. But a lot of writers have to write because they're writing for themselves, so whether or not someone sees your work or not- they're still writing because they absolutely have to.
I never know what I'm going to write next. If I'm still writing the book but I'm very near the end, and I begin to think of what I'd like to do next, then I'll know that what I'm writing is in hand. I'll think of an ending and it will be fine.
I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.
When I write, I feel that I'm writing with my intellect. When I paint, I think it's some other force making me paint. I - as I wrote in my novel 'My Name is Red' - watch with amazement what my hand is doing on the paper, what kind of line, what kind of strange, beautiful thing it's doing in spite of my will, so to speak.
I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.
The writing is amazing because having a hand in creating what you're going to be performing... there's nothing like it. It's always going to be better suited for you. You're always going to know the lines faster, because you wrote it. The writing is so very hard. It's the hardest part of the whole process. In some ways the acting is a lot easier and a lot more fun.
I don't really have hobbies. I paint. I write. I direct videos. I take photos. I'm a creative person. A normal day for me is doing all of those things. Sometimes I stay up until 5 A.M. writing a song because I make music. It's the same with writing.
I've never had a mentor personally of any kind. It feels like, generally, in the writing world or the art world, it's more of a thing in America, because you have writing programs, which we don't have. You have these amazing writers who are teachers. I never did a writing program so I never met a writer until I was published. I guess I can't really explain my compulsion for writing these kind of mentor characters.
I write because it's all I know how to do. Writing is my anchor and my purpose. My life is informed by writing, whether the work is going well or I'm stuck in the hell of writer's block, which I'm happy to report only occurs about once a day.
You paint what you know best; what you went through as a teenager and child. My world is the one I got to know in Medellin; I never paint anything else other than that.
What caricature is in painting, burlesque is in writing; and in the same manner the comic writer and painter correlate to each other; as in the former, the painter seems to have the advantage, so it is in the latter infinitely on the side of the writer. For the monstrous is much easier to paint than describe, and the ridiculous to describe than paint.
The secret to writing is writing. Lots of people I know talk about writing. They will tell me about the book they are going to write, or are thinking about writing, or may write some day in the future. And I know they will never do it. If someone is serious about writing, then they will sit down every day and put some words down on paper.
Related Authors
Ayn Rand Quotes
Russian
Writer
C. S. Lewis Quotes
British
Writer
Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes
French
Writer
Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes
English
Writer
H. L. Mencken Quotes
American
Writer
Haruki Murakami Quotes
Japanese
Writer
Kurt Vonnegut Quotes
American
Writer
Leo Tolstoy Quotes
Russian
Writer
Mark Twain Quotes
American
Writer
Mason Cooley Quotes
American
Writer
Ray Bradbury Quotes
American
Writer
Samuel Johnson Quotes
English
Writer
Seth Godin Quotes
American
Writer
Sherrilyn Kenyon Quotes
American
Writer
Suzanne Collins Quotes
American
Writer