Patrick deWitt Quotes

When I write notes in my journal, I'm just trying to scribble down as much as possible. Later on, I decide whether to follow some of those first impressions or whether to abandon them.

I keep threatening to keep a formal journal, but whenever I start one it instantly becomes an exercise in self-consciousness. Instead of a journal I manage to have dozens of notebooks with bits and pieces of stories, poems, and notes. Almost every thing I do has its beginning in a notebook of some sort, usually written on a bus or train.

I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.

I have these huge black foam boards on the wall, and tacked to them, I have these white punch cards with my story ideas, scenes and notes.

Always write your ideas down however silly or trivial they might seem. Keep a notebook with you at all times.

And once I know what the first page is, then the rest will come.

I write every day... I never get ideas unless I'm actually writing. Ideas I get in the shower don't do me any good.

It's kind of a mysterious process, but something will catch my attention, and I'll make a note about it. I may even write a few pages about it, and then I'll put it aside, but I'll sort of keep it in mind. Then as time goes on, other things will gather to it as if it's a magnet, almost, and eventually, there's enough to make the story.

I write stuff down. I have a chalkboard in the kitchen where I will scrawl stuff down if I have a faint outline of an idea. And I'll go into my office or whatever. But that goes from format to format.

I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.

I'm always writing lyrics. I have so many lyrics on so many stray pieces of paper. Everywhere.

I have notebooks and sketchbooks for ideas. I also have drawers full of envelopes covered in quick outlines, scenes or scraps of dialogue that I don't want to forget. I tend to grab whatever's to hand and just get the thing down before it's lost. It's not what you would call a streamlined system.

I find a lot of writing happens when you're not actually at the computer. So I carry a notebook.

I don't take notes. I don't have any notebooks. I keep on trying to do that because it seems like a very writerly thing to do, but my mind doesn't work that way. I tend to get the idea for a novel in a big splash.

I carry around a black leather Moleskine journal all the time. And I always write ideas down, especially when I'm on set and working with actors like Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis and learning from them.

When you're writing, you're putting thought into what you want to express, and then you come up with it - it comes to you. When you're improvising, it's the same thing. You're writing. You just say it out loud right then, instead of saying, 'You think this might work?'

Everything about writing is hard for me except for that - the names pop into my head. That's one of the reasons why I always make sure I have a notebook with me.

What I often do when I'm writing, if I can't find that story, I go out and I hunt for it.

We have so much inspiration. It's everywhere... So I always have a pen with me and a laptop, and I write everything down.

I've always kept a notebook in my pocket, I've always written stuff down since I was a kid.

I keep a composition book with me at all times to write rhymes, to write down ideas, write down my thoughts, you know just so I don't forget any ideas.

As authors, we know that it is very difficult to unleash one's creativity.

When I was kid, they always used to tell me to keep notebooks. I look at my shelves now and it's just nothing but notebooks. And if I haven't gotten an idea but I have time to work, I'll pull one out and I bet there will be five or six sentences that will kick me off.

When I'm inspired, I jot things down and put them in a pile.

My little notebooks were beginnings - they were the ground into which I dropped the seed... I would work in this way when I was out in the crowds, then put the stuff together at home.