Ronald Frame Quotes

The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.

I never sit down to write anything personal unless I know the subject is going to go beyond my own experience and address something larger and more universal.

I just sit down and the page just comes out and I look at it and the elements that appear on that page have a lot to do with what's going on in my life.

If you sing beautifully about nothing, no one will listen. If you sing badly about great stuff, no one will listen. Ideas are everywhere, but my theory is that a writer doesn't just think of an idea: they perform them.

I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.

I think any writer keeps going back to some basic theme. Sometimes it's autobiographical. I guess it usually is.

All of my films have been autobiographical - it's all I've got to go on.

I always like to write where I'm at in real life into whatever I'm working on.

I imagine a child. That child is me. I can reconstruct and vividly remember portions of my own childhood. I can see, taste, smell, feel, and hear them. Then what I do is, not write about that kid or about his world, but start to think of a book that would have pleased him.

By the time I sit down and face the blank page I am raring to go. I tell it as if I'm talking to my best friend or one of my grandchildren.

I write what feels real. I write things that are informed both by my own experience and by actual history.

I don't write autobiographically.

I like to tell stories in my writing but I definitely use my own life experiences to tell that story.

Sometimes, a writer's life alone can tell a story.

My writing is a product of how I would interact with things that have happened to me or things that have not happened to me but have happened to somebody else.

With memoir, you have the clay of your life to work with. When you're writing a novel, you have to make the clay first.

So much emotion goes into writing fiction.

I'm still in love with what I do, with the idea of making things up, so hours when I write always feel like very blessed hours to me.

When I'm the one who sits down and looks at the blank page and writes it out all the way, then I'll call it my script.

I sort of love reading the scripts and going, 'Oh wow, what a great idea. I never would have thought of that.'

I say that I can't make anything up. I think of myself as a collage artist. I'm cutting and pasting memories of my life. And I say, I have to live a life in order to tell a life. I would prefer to tell it because telling you're always in control, you're like God.

All fiction becomes autobiographical when the author has true talent.

I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore.

When I lead essay workshops, I ask students to come up with at least five topics, which they'll narrow down to one. The winning idea should be the story the student is most excited to tell because it honestly reflects his or her best self.

When I write stories I am like someone who is in her own country, walking along streets that she has known since she was a child, between walls and trees that are hers.