Elizabeth Meriwether Quotes

Making playlists can kill a whole afternoon for me. I like building very specific playlists for new writing projects. In a strange way, choosing certain songs is part of the process of plotting the book out. I pick songs that I think with resonate with characters, their personality quirks, relationship dynamics, action scenes, and so on.

Some therapists have proclaimed: 'Co-dependency is anything, and everyone is co-dependent.'

When you're in a relationship with someone who's selfish, what keeps you in it is the fact that when they shine on you, it's this souped-up shine. And you feel like you're in the club. And you don't even know what club it is. You just know you want to stay in it.

If the script is telling the story well, that is your inspiration, and you do not need to go somewhere else.

I think most people have experienced that at some point: being on one end or the other of a super-unbalanced relationship.

I knew as far back as 2001 that I would write a book called 'A Visit From the Goon Squad,' though I had no idea what kind of book it would be.

I'm a bore. I save all my energy for my characters.

Writing the 'Crossfire' series is deeply personal for me, and I love the whole process of it.

I don't know how to have a normal relationship because I try to act normal and love from a normal place and live a normal life, but there is sort of an abnormal magnifying glass, like telescope lens, on everything that happens.

The deal is such that when I begin writing something, I open a door, and those characters come in, and then they won't leave, and so I live with them every day, all day. They are there with me when I'm driving my kids to school, when I'm standing in line at the grocery store.

I spend so long writing each of my novels that by the time I'm done with one, I'm ready to discover a totally different world.

When you're actually inside the experience of writing something, in some ways, you're just writing. Ultimately, you fall in love with the characters, and you get excited about the story, and you're sitting there in your sweatpants or pajamas, and you do get a little lost in it.

I don't believe you just create a character out of thin air, there's always something of yourself you bring.

I write my books never thinking of an actor.

I think 'Dark Blue' came to me while I was doing a project in London. I read it, and the character immediately popped out at me.

I fundamentally believe that no one can teach you how to write - finding out how to write a story is part of the process of creating a story - but you can really learn through exposure to different writing, to different art forms, to different modes of storytelling, and with mentors who are able to get you to step outside your comfort zone.

The process is different for every book, but there are similarities. I always draw from the inside out. I don't plot them ahead of time, and I'm always surprised by things that happen in my books.

It's a recurring thing: It's that I fall really deeply for bad relationships. It's just always been this way and not changing.

At the end of the day, I write characters that I want to play, because I just think, 'Hey, maybe one day it'll get made.'

When you're a writer, if you're very lucky, you create these characters that you fall in love with, and you feel like they're guiding you rather than you guiding them.

I write my books at moments of shock. I meet people in extremis and their stories are highly emotionally charged.

What I like about writing novels is that I'm in my own world for nine months.

Whenever I write, I try and approach my stories from some kind of universal theme or idea or emotion.

That's the thing about writing for a lot of the villains is that, as a writer, you kind of have to put the best part of your own personality aside and instead focus on whatever little strange quirks you may have in your personality.

Sober Thoughts' is a song about an unhealthy relationship I was in with a girl, where we would continue to mistreat each other, to spite each other. We were bad for each other, yet we always came back together, because we thought we 'loved each other.' It was a young love, not a forever love.