"Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life."

--

Source : New York Times, March 24, 1985.

Neil Simon

#Art Quotes #Writing Quotes #Thinking Quotes

“I don't have time to think about age. There are so many things to do.”
“Let us forgive each other - only then will we live in peace.”
“In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning and cruelty.”
“The madness of youth made me unafraid.”

Source : Lauren DeStefano (2013). “Perfect Ruin”, p.9, Simon and Schuster
“I think a lot about the poems I wasn't able to write...I masturbrated...Solitude is essentially a matter of pride; you bury yourself in your own scent. The issue is the same for all real poets. If you've been happy for too long, you become banal. By the same token, if you've been unhappy for a long time, you lose your poetic power...Happiness and poverty can only coexist for the briefest time. Afterword either happiness coarsens the poet or the poem is so true it destroys his happiness.”
“America's commitment to religious freedom and tolerance should not be conditional.”
“With a sound like a bat hitting a watermelon, pirate fist connected with pirate jaw and a gold tooth bounced across the deck.”

Source : Gideon Defoe (2010). “The Pirates!: An Adventure with Scientists & An Adventure with Ahab”, p.12, Vintage
“Let's put it this way: if you are a novelist, I think you start out with a 20 word idea, and you work at it and you wind up with a 200,000 word novel. We, picture-book people, or at least I, start out with 200,000 words and I reduce it to 20”

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