That was one of the big problems when I was at Harvard studying music. We had to write choral pieces in the style of Brahms or Mendelssohn, which was distressing because in the end you realized how good Brahms is, and how bad you are. Elliott Carter
To try to write a grand cosmical drama leads necessarily to myth. To try to let knowledge substitute ignorance in increasingly larger regions of space and time is science.
Hannes Alfven
I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue. Francis Ford Coppola
I'll think of the idea and then I'll write something down, then within that there will be a joke or two which is the original thing which I thought was funny. David Cross
I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life. Amy Tan
I still have a full-time day job, which is why it took me five years to write An Ear to the Ground, and why I won't have another book finished by next week. Ken Thompson
I think my books talk about kids learning to like and respect themselves and each other. You can't write a message book; you just tell the best story you know how to tell. Paula Danziger