Dee Rees Quotes

I always loved writing, but never considered that I could do it professionally.

I love writing, and I am one of the people who can do it and make a living.

I may not have become a good writer, but I managed to make a living out of writing.

I knew I wanted to write professionally and get paid.

I've been a writer for 42 years and, yes, it is a full time job for me. Not a hobby, but serious work.

This sounds like a cliche, but I always wanted to write. After college, I did some writing and realized very quickly that it's hard to make a living as a writer. At that point, I was more interested in fiction writing.

I knew I wanted to be a writer before I knew that being a writer was possible.

My aunt could never understand how writing could be a full-time job. She'd keep asking when I'd get a real job!

Somebody's always getting me to come lecture to their writing class, and I don't talk about writing at all, I talk about the business of making a living at this racket.

I didn't really realize that writing... would be fun and people would pay you to do it. Being an astronaut is a glory profession, and so is writing, in a way.

I don't think I knew that you could be a novelist. I think a lot of my students are in the same condition. I thought it was unreachable, that it was sort of dead people. It took me a long time - I think I was well into novel writing before I really thought, 'Actually, this is a valid pastime.'

I didn't want to write for pay. I wanted to be paid for what I write.

I had many different careers early on. I knew I wanted to be a writer. But, like so many people, I didn't know how to be one - other than just do it. I didn't know what form it would take.

To be a working writer is the holy grail, where you don't have three other jobs on top of that.

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.

At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it.

I wasn't one of those kids who grew up wanting to write or who read a particular book and thought: 'I want to do that!' I always told stories and wrote them down, but I never thought writing was a career path, even though, clearly, someone was writing the books and newspapers and magazines.

Many writers can't make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I don't really know about its value to the student. I don't mean it's useless. But I wouldn't have wanted anyone to teach me how to write.

Writing was my first occupation, begun at age 23.

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.

When I write, I make decent money doing it, but I don't wake up dreaming about writing.

Writing doesn't leave much time for hobbies, unless you consider that I began writing as a hobby and have made the hobby into a profession.

I don't teach writing classes anymore, and I'm really glad I don't, because I would feel very strange about telling people, 'Go out there and be a writer, and make a living from it.'

Let's be clear - for people like me, who are obsessed with story and for whom words are their medium, writing is the best job possible. I work hard, but I earn more than the national average wage while I play with my imagination, and for me, that's a dream.

I've been writing full-time since I was 23.