Quentin Tarantino Quotes

One writes not by will but by surrender.

None of my books has been ever in my head; after they're finished, they go. It's like being a sort of medium; you just grab it when it's there then just release it when it's time to go. There's a lot of instinct, not planning.

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.

Sometimes things just fall out of your head on the paper, and if you're smart, you learn not to touch them.

I don't type [when I write] because . . . I often have the feeling that everything flows directly from my right hand.

The trouble with a lot of people who try to write is they intellectualize about it. That comes after. The intellect is given to us by God to test things once they’re done, not to worry about things ahead of time.

For the most part I write very stream of consciousness. I basically need to be recording an entire writing session because it's almost like I black out and just start singing whatever is on my mind and forget it as soon as I stop.

When I'm recording, which is synonymous with writing, I'll play things over and over again until it sounds like I've got the right guitar part. Whereas I think, as the much younger player I tended to do things much more consciously. I didn't wait for the moment where inspiration might strike. That's what I do now. I wait for it to naturally start to replay itself in my mind. As I say, I don't force it. So I like to think of myself as a receiver. I'm a telephone line to who knows where, but until I hear it through that receiver, I don't usually do it. It's got to start writing itself somehow.

Writing is a strange synthesis between the two parts of your mind: the analytical side and the side that knows nothing at all, and you have to allow the dreaming side free rein.

I think good artists know when they're on a roll, and they recognize when lightning is striking. It's a very fortunate thing to have that inspiration and not to overanalyze it or mess with it; you just follow it if you love what you do.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

I write songs, and I sing them. I never formulated a plan; I can't tell anyone else how to do this. But it feels right, so I just kind of enjoy it and get on with it.

All stories come from the subconscious - which is why it doesn't make sense to over-plan.

I don't outline; I listen to a kind of whisper inside the material.

Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

I have great difficulty sitting in the middle of the night and writing. Everything I do comes spontaneous. Sometimes it takes a long time; sometimes it comes just like that.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

I write and draw from the gut. I often don't know what my stories are about until they're done.

Writing lyrics is part spontaneous, intuitive and part really thought through and carefully analyzed as you write it. It's a mixture of two approaches, and I imagine writing anything is like that, really. Some of it just flows, and you just go with it.

The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.

Writing songs and looking for ideas is like blinking my eyes. It's an involuntary muscle. I do it without thought.

It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.

And I don't have any specific steps to take because I don't start the same way every time. But there is a knowing when it's enough and you can leave it alone.

I never question what to do, it tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help.

Painting is almost like a sport. It's like this action thing. When I do it, I'm really not thinking. The paintings are like a diary that I might not want to read again.